Badlander
by DarkComedy
Summary: The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is being fought on a galactic scale. Now, an American pilot must train the Cornerians to combat the rising influence of Communism on the inhabitants of Lylat, and the darker forces that are pulling the strings. Rated T for violence and possible romances.
1. A New Day

**Just a short notice: I do not own any characters of Star Fox, but any OC in this story is most exclusively a product of my imagination.  
**

**Author's note/ brief introduction: This story takes place in an alternate universe in which much of modern human history has taken place on a galactic scale. Both world wars, as we know them today, were fought across the cosmos, and as such the battles and the setting of the wars themselves have taken a much darker turn. And now, I believe the proper year/setting for this story would be circa 1950; in the beginning years of the West-Soviet/Sino Cold War, and the Lylat System is fumbling in a state of confusion caused by the contradiction of human ideals forced upon them by the United States and the Soviet Union. The purpose behind this story is to introduce political and nationalistic ideals to the Star Fox universe to see how the various characters act and react under those unfamiliar circumstances. Curious? Read on!  
**

**Badlander **

**Chapter One: A New Day  
**

In the black gulf of space the hum of the engines nurtured him in his dreamless sleep. Images of friends, family, wishes or desires did not disturb his slumber. His sleep was blank, like the vacuum of the interstellar space around the grey carrier warship which now traveled faster than light toward its destination. The humming stopped and he awoke.

_We're here_, he silently mused as he rose to start a new day, a word which was a foreign concept among inhabitants of a starship. Days were merely based on numerical increments of time from a home world hundreds of light years away, of a people who did not know he ever existed.

He looked himself in the mirror of his personal quarters and reminded himself: _I am a pilot_. He rose and put on his dark green flight suit and retrieved a box of the newly branded instant oatmeal from one of the upper cabinets. He took a packet from the box and placed it into the microwave, activating a subroutine that cooked the cereal packet until it was perfect and warm.

As the food cooked he surveyed the cluttered space which was his alone. A small, lone bed stood mere feed from him, along with a small mirror, dresser, hanging space, a table and a chair, all condensed into a metallic blue room. Under the bed, his saxophone gleamed warmly in spite of its owner's negligence.

This represented the single largest private living space he had occupied since he was a child growing up in a Depression orphanage and his subsequent life scavenging on the streets. He grimaced at the thought of his childhood and returned his attention to the microwave's dull beeping. He retrieved the packet and emptied it into a bowl before slumping down in the chair to eat although he was not hungry. The food was tasteless and he wished more than anything that he had good food.

_Wishes are for children_, he remarked somberly as he got rid of the bowl and exited his quarters.

_Once I get down to the planet_, he thought as he began to walk, _I'll have to see about getting a nice juicy bacon cheeseburger_. His stomach growled in protest. _Okay, okay. With extra cheesy bacon fries too. There. Happy?_ His stomach purred contentedly and he let a small smile play about his face.

* * *

"Captain Gideon Waller United States Air Force. Step forward!"

At the mention of his name, he stepped out from the organized crowd of Navy, Marine, and Air Force pilots and awaited instruction. He had to clench his fists to keep his cold blue eyes from darting away from the announcing officer in nervousness.

"Captain Waller," a tall, graying man with chiseled facial features spoke, "I have reviewed your personnel files and have decided that you are qualified to head our mission against the spread of communism in the Lylat System. Report to Hanger Bay 4 at 0700 tomorrow morning for briefing and transport to the Cornerian Air Defense Academy where you will be training the local pilots. Dismissed!"

* * *

_So that was how it happened_, Gideon mused. A simple order and flick of the authoritative wrist or two and he was on his way flying alongside the first transport down to Corneria. He had been told the assignment was a great honor – the first American to train aliens in the art of waging aerial warfare. But he found it unsettling that his first contact with another race should constitute a violent nature. He shrugged off the thought as he piloted his silver-yellow P-51 Mustang into the warm blue depths of Corneria's skies.

He heard the gentle hum of the communications system as the Cornerian operators acknowledged his approach.

"This is the Cornerian Air Defense Academy," a woman's voice spoke alluringly over the communications equipment and Gideon had to remind himself that the "woman" who was speaking to him probably didn't even remotely resemble a human. The voice continued, "Uh, we're picking you up on the IFF. Captain Waller, you are cleared for approach and landing on Runway 3."

"Yeah, like I know where that is, you damned dirty animal…" he grumbled unintentionally.

"Oh, I see tough guy, you're in for a little bit of prick waving." The feminine voice suddenly took on a flustering tone, "How 'bout this: let me hit the runway lights for you. Oh, wait - humans have bad eyesight so that won't work during the day. But I'll do it anyway because I'm awesome. Have fun!" The communication link went dead.

Gideon sighed angrily and briefly entertained the thought of firing a volley of energy blasts and annihilating that godforsaken control tower. He let a maniacal grin play about his face as he imagined enacting his private dark joke as his fighter rocketed across the skies.

* * *

"Oh god, Hazel. Really? You can't keep it together for two seconds? " A blue male avian shook his head as he chastised the reddish vixen at the controls. Orange light from the Lylatian sun filtered upon them through the tinted windows of the CADA control tower.

Her pretty amber eyes widened in mock astonishment, "But he called me an animal, Falco! The human'll be lucky if I don't punch him square in the jaw once he lands."

"Woah, okay missie," Falco exclaimed, raising his arms and smirking with his long, yellow beak. "Heh, and I thought _I_ was the hothead!"

Hazel sighed and ignored the comment. "What's so important about this human anyway? Haven't they caused enough damage here already?" Her eyes grew dark as she leaned to look at the floor, considering some distant memory silently.

Hazel's silent pondering was not lost on Falco, but he was didn't wish to bring it up for fear that it would hurt his friend. He leaned in close and spoke, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "Well, this guy Waller was supposed to be some big shot pilot back when the humans had their Great War Two and the Americans were still fighting the Nazis and the Japanese. The dude downed over a hundred enemy fighters and rumor has it he single-handedly responsible for ending the war. Now, Pepper wants him here to help train us to fight the Commies. Big deal, eh?"

"God, I could go right back to fighting Andross and his devious schemes for system-wide domination right about now!" Hazel exclaimed, eliciting a short chuckle from Falco. He was relieved that his friend was back in good mood.

"Well after Fox rescued Krystal and got rid of Andross a part of me was kind've disappointed that the dumb ape was finally rotting in hell, because it meant that Star Fox would have no one left to fight. Then we got the Aparoids. And now we have the Communists-" Falco paused when his friend's face suddenly grew dark, "I'm just saying you should be careful what you wish for." He amended, cursing his stupid beak for dimming the mood.

Hazel nodded. "Wishes are for children," she whispered silently. She spoke up, "Still, it feels so strange having an alien come down here to teach us the ropes, especially after the Americans bought half the planet after our little Aparoid debacle. Waller probably doesn't know anything about us, hell, he's partially responsible for this mess we're in now. And now he's going to be teaching us how to fight. I don't like it." She sighed, "What are you doing down here anyway?"

Falco grinned in spite of the serious turn of their conversation. "Well, military pilots aren't the _only_ ones Pepper wants under the good alien Captain's wing. We mercenaries, the paragons of true capitalism, must learn the ways of our alien overlords to combat the Red Menace. Fox _hates_ it." He emphasized the last sentence, sending them both bowling over with laughter.

They calmed down a bit and Hazel nodded again. "I wish the guy would lighten up a bit. He always seems so stressed. Whenever any of us on the base sees him on teleview, he looks like he's aged ten years each time. We worry about him."

Falco smiled sadly. His good friend Fox McCloud was often too serious for his own good, but when push came to shove, Falco considered his friend to be among the greatest men he had ever known, though he would never admit it out loud. "Yeah, he's been through a lot," Falco spoke softly, "but this whole situation with the humans coming here and starting a war between Cornerians is tearing him apart."

Hazel sighed and her ears perked up. The unsubtle beeping of the Air Proximity Scanner filled the small control room. "I guess that's the human," she sighed and stood up. Falco followed the reddish vixen excitedly out the door. Since the Aparoids were defeated and the humans came down to Corneria with their little political ideologies, it wasn't every day Falco had a chance to be surprised.

* * *

"This is Captain Waller, call-sign Badlander, starting approach." He spoke over the communications equipment as he prepared to land on the narrow stretch of runway that was Runway 3. He thought with disapproval about Command's wishes for him to perform an old-fashioned landing rather than utilizing the vertical takeoff and landing engines. They had wanted him to impress the local pilots.

_Anything for king and country_, he thought sarcastically and throttled down, sending his majestic silver fighter gliding toward the black pavement that awaited his arrival like an unfulfilled prophecy.

The landing went smoothly despite the narrow terrain. As he scooted his fighter to a stop at the entrance to one of the nearby hangars, he could once more hear the loud roar of the Mustang's engines. God, he loved that sound. Silently, he imagined he was back in space, flying to the outer edges of the galaxy, with no war or Cold War for that matter to distract him from the comfort of his endless wanderings. Perhaps under those circumstances he could find some measure of peace within the dark chasm of his own soul. But wherever he went, war and death always followed. It was inevitable.

Movement outside of his cockpit brought him back into the land of the living. He sighed and shut off the fighter's engines, which died slowly as if to protest his action. He pushed a few buttons, detaching the lower half of the cockpit from the plane as the transparent lid hissed open. Warm air entered his lungs and the new morning sun radiated cozily against his cold face. It was time to start a new day.

* * *

**A/N: Hey, I'm sorry about the lack of action in this first chapter, but it was necessary to set up the scenario and introduce some of the characters. I promise there will be action, dogfights, and political conflicts in the coming chapters. I thank you for reading, and if you have any feedback for my story, please rate and review. I learn more from one criticism than I can ever learn from silence.**


	2. Meeting the Locals

**Short Notice: I do not own any of the Star Fox characters, but any OC are most exclusively products of my imagination.  
**

**Author's Note: I'd like to thank Shadow Commander and LnCpl. Luke Tamaken for commenting on the first chapter of this story. Your feedback has been very helpful and influential in the writing of this new chapter. ****  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 2: Meeting the Locals**

Hazel couldn't hear her own thoughts. The sheer power of the masculine roar of the alien fighter overpowered her sensitive hearing. She couldn't believe any military would ever produce a vehicle so loud. She discovered right then and there just how much she had taken the silence of the Arwings and other Cornerian fighters for granted.

Alongside her, Falco clutched the sides of his head, screaming out something that sounded like "truck" as the numerous pilots and engineers alike attempted to signal the pilot to shut off his godforsaken engines.

Suddenly, the noise from the engines began to die and Hazel could make out the barely perceptible form of the pilot pressing buttons within the canopy.

As the noise settled and Cornerians recuperated, she wondered for the first time what this human might look like. Sure, she'd seen pictures and videos of them on the news, but she had never seen one in person. It was difficult for her to imagine a creature without fur or scales, or goddamned slippery skin like the amphibians. She shrugged the thought off. Whatever this human looked like, he'd probably be hideous anyway, she decided.

_Why the hell am I worrying what he's going to look like? God, I sound like a little girl._ She silently chastised herself and shook her head.

"You okay, Hazel? That engine _killed_ my birdbrain!" Falco emphasized as he approached her.

"I'm okay, it's just…" Did she really want to talk about what she was really shaking her head about? "Nothing, Falco. Let's get ready, I still have a human to punch."

The blue avian grinned, "I think you oughta add me to that list!"

They smiled at each other. Hazel appreciated how nice it was to still have friends left in the world despite the numerous challenges the universe had been throwing at Lylat as of late.

Their smiles faltered when they heard a hissing sound coming from the direction of the giant alien fighter, which easily dwarfed the Arwings lauded so jubilantly by the Star Fox team.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd as the transparent cockpit lid slowly rose with a low hiss. A dark figure rose from the cockpit and stood on the edge of the fighter facing them. The figure, cold, dark, and faceless, regarded them with invisible eyes from behind its state-of-the-art reflective helmet.

Hazel was keen to note that the pilot's archaic-looking Colt .45 sidearm stood attached to his hip, mere inches from his right hand, and drew back a few steps. The figure seemed to sense this and distanced his hand from the powerful pistol. Hazel drew in a small sigh of relief.

There was another collective gasp from the crowd as the figure took a step forward and allowed himself to fall over ten feet to the ground, sending a _clap_ over the silent crowd when the figure's boots collided with the black pavement.

Slowly, the figure stood and walked toward the group. Hazel could make out her own warped reflection in the pilot's helmet. The pilot stopped mere feet from the group. None of the Cornerians spoke. Even Falco was silent. The feathers on his head stood up as he surveyed the alien pilot before him.

The figure reached his hands up and depressed some nozzle on the side of the helmet which made a hissing noise and began to take the helmet off.

_Geez, what is with these people and hissing sounds! _Hazel thought, as the figure removed his helmet and stood before the group with his face uncovered.

Hazel studied the human's face with unexpected fascination. The figure before her had pale white skin, cold blue eyes, and dark black hair close-cropped military style. Besides the skin, Hazel thought Captain Waller looked more like a close-combat warrior than a fighter pilot.

The most striking feature Hazel could make out were the icy blue eyes, which screamed out the pale depths of the pilot's face. Aside from the eyes, the figure looked to be no older than her, but those blue eyes were ancient, and spoke of hundreds of years of experience, or at least the war-time equivalent.

"Um, hello everyone," the human stammered quietly, utterly shocking Hazel by not reaching for his sidearm and killing them all.

"Hello!" Falco replied enthusiastically, reaching out to shake the human's hand. The human looked down hesitantly at the feathered wing the bird offered to him and reciprocated.

It was going to be an interesting day.

* * *

"According to military sources, the Communists have seized control of the city of Kaeto, which stands nearly two thousand kilometers from Corneria City-"

An orange vulpine clicked the remote.

"-represents the closest Communist forces have asserted control near Corneria City-"

He clicked the remote again and the telescreen went blank. The orange fox stared into the blank screen for a moment before tossing the remote onto the nearby table. Around him, a couch, coffee table, several chairs, and a distant kitchen greeted his desperate view.

The fox sighed and slumped down into his white couch. His back dug deeply into the soft cushions and for a brief moment he was tempted to sleep and forget about the universe's problems. But, as always, whenever he had those thoughts, the distinct fatherly voice inside his head told him to get his ass back up and keep moving. That was the same voice that prevented him from hesitating when he was tasked with destroying Andross, and later the invincible Aparoid Queen. That voice was screaming at him now, drawing him out of his half-slumber and forcing him to face the world.

"Yeah, thanks Dad," he voiced aloud.

"What is it, Fox?" a warm, feminine voice further roused him, though this time he didn't mind.

He shook his head quietly and spoke softly, "It's everywhere, Krystal. The Reds have taken over Kaeto. That's only a couple of thousand kilometers from here." He hung his head out so the light carpet dominated his vision. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

He turned his head and gazed into the beautiful vixen's emerald eyes, which were a lot like his own, although her fur was a unique shade of blue only found on a handful of mammals. Krystal put a paw on his shoulder and he covered it with one of his.

"You'll get us through this, Fox. You always have." Krystal softly replied. Always the optimist, she kept him strong in times he'd have rather fallen apart.

He smiled weakly and was about to say something before the comm system within his apartment began its unsubtle beeping. Krystal grimaced at the noise and Fox was instantly reminded of all the times the blue vixen had pleaded with him to change the ringtone. Normally, he needed the ringtone to be loud, because he never knew when he would be summoned to fight another enemy of Corneria. But this time he had to agree; the noise was oppressive.

Fox walked over to the comm system and retrieved the earpiece to listen to whatever message had been recorded in the system. His face seemed to further drain itself of color as he put the earpiece down.

"What's wrong, Fox?" Krystal asked, her once-calm voice taking on a worried tone.

"Remember that _human_ I told you about?" Krystal nodded and he continued, "Well, he's here now. Pepper wants us down at CADA as soon as possible so this Captain Waller can brief us on Soviet flight maneuvers."

Krystal instantly recognized the hostile tone of Fox's voice, which he generally reserved for dangerous creatures like Wolf O'Donnell, Pigma, or Andross. He did not like this human, and for good reason, Krystal decided. She would have to be extra cautious in the near-future.

* * *

The reception Gideon received after landing on Runway 3 had been almost friendly, all things considered. The more he played the scenario over in his head, the more he couldn't blame the Cornerians for being hesitant to greet him, save for the jovial bird Falco he had instantly taken a liking to. There was another figure who caught his interest, a reddish Cornerian vixen who stood in the back of the crowd and surveyed him with bright pretty amber eyes that glittered with unabashed intelligence. He instantly wondered what it was she had been thinking at the time.

He shrugged off the thought and turned his head to survey the land. Aside from the dark pavement of the CADA runways, much of the surrounding land was enveloped in countryside greenery. It was a stark contrast from his overdeveloped home world of New York City, which was more of a moon, orbiting in a figure eight pattern around adjacent planets New York and New Jersey.

The city itself was an urban wonder that spanned hundreds of miles, competing with the distant stars of the cosmos for the privilege of illuminating the galaxy. New York was a triumph of American innovation and ingenuity, and the center of American life and of much of the Western Cosmos.

But beneath the spectral wonders of the great city, the streets, littered with trash and unclaimed corpses of the dead, was a breeding ground for crime, homelessness, and disease. For every New Yorker who lived well, it was said ten lived in abject misery. Yet the city of over one hundred million people still went about its business. Because the city of New York never slept.

A bump in the road drew him out of his silent reverie. He looked back into the land vehicle which was carrying him to some undisclosed destination. A nameless soldier sat in the back seat with him. Gideon leaned in closer to get a better view.

The old, grizzled canine regarded him with narrow stone brown eyes which seemed to see right through him. Gideon had no doubt that if he made any move to harm any important Cornerians, the soldier sitting next to him would not hesitate to kill him. It was his duty, and duty was all he knew. Gideon nodded in understanding. The soldier reciprocated.

* * *

"The situation is worse than we thought, Mr. President. It seems the Red forces have managed to infiltrate and assume control of Kaeto, a city within striking distance of Corneria City." The old hound-general dictated, standing in front of the large telescreen. On the other end, a white-haired human with large spectacles around his eyes drew his left hand to his chin in a thinking pose.

"Are you expecting an attack?" The President asked, fully aware of the hound's answer.

"We are. And normally we'd be able to defend ourselves with little difficulty. But after our conflict with the Aparoids, we just don't have the resources to deal with a threat of this severity." The hound sighed and his voice began to take on a more desperate tone, "They're going to bomb us to the Stone Age and laugh as our citizens shrug us off their shoulders." He looked at the stale tile floor of the CADA Command Center and spoke softly, "God damn you people for ever contacting us."

If the President on the other end of the communications link heard that last sentence, he made no visible facial acknowledgement.

"General Pepper, we can't send forces without motivating the Soviets to do the same. Things are tense right now. The conflict on the Korean world isn't going smoothly. Its proximity to the PRC*, a major Soviet ally, isn't helping the issue either. MacArthur, one of my top generals, believes that if these conflicts escalate, it could lead to an unprecedented level of warfare. I happen to agree with him," The President stated, his tone calm and level despite the increasingly dire situation.

"You mean an unprecedented level of _slaughter_," the hound replied. "We only agreed to serve as a staging point for your goddamned K-Bombs because you assured us that something like this wouldn't happen. I've read the reports. I saw the damage those things can cause! You're talking about universal Armageddon for crying out loud! So don't go telling me you don't want these conflicts to escalate; they already have! Delaying now will cost us everything."

The President nodded and General Pepper silently cursed himself for venting his frustrations on the most powerful man in the free universe. Heaven knew that if Pepper was stressed defending one solar system, how much stress was the man before him suffering in order to defend an entire galaxy?

"There will be no direct American intervention in the Cornerian conflict for as long as there is no direct Soviet intervention. We can't risk open war right now," the President stated matter-of-factly, "but," he continued, allowing a sad smile to form on his face, "since Captain Waller is already down there with you, I don't see any reason he shouldn't be able to help you, as long as he isn't flying American colors. He's all yours if you want him. Just bring him back in one piece; he's done his country a grim, but necessary service."

* * *

"Well, this sure is a big round room…" Gideon thought aloud as the grizzled canine from the car led him into massive spherical space underneath CADA. He turned back to the ferocious dog, "Don't tell me you have giant super-soldier hamsters that use this place as their secret exercise room," he exclaimed, earning a voiceless scowl from the dog.

"Oh, I'd almost _pay_ to see that!" an enthusiastic voice chimed behind him. Gideon turned to see a crowd of Cornerians of various species walking toward him. He recognized the blue bird, Falco, the reddish vixen with the pretty eyes, and some others from his awkward landing reception. Three other figures; a short, bulbous toad-like creature, an orange vulpine, and a vixen with a peculiarly bluish fur coat walked up that Gideon didn't recognize.

The crowd gasped, apparently recognizing the figures. A general chorus of phrases like, "Look, it's Fox McCloud!" and "Wow, I can't (explicative) believe it's Star Fox!" echoed throughout the gigantic sphere.

Gideon shook his head disapprovingly. "Celebrities, eh? Well ain't that swell…" he grumbled under his breath.

* * *

"Captain Waller! These are my teammates on Star Fox!" Falco drew the human's attention toward Krystal, Fox and the toad, who scratched the top of his slippery head nervously.

The blue avian introduced Waller to the toad first.

"I'm Slippy! Slippy Toad!" The green amphibian's high pitched voice resounded nervously throughout the room as he held a sticky hand out, which the human shook, though Krystal could tell he did so with reluctance, as if he were thinking: _Now, which apocalyptic plague will I catch from this hand?_

Krystal was, of course, a telepath, and an instinctive analyst of sentient psyches. Reading the emotions and intentions of others was second nature to her, even without her abilities. Her studious, analytical nature would have made her an excellent interrogator, but she could never bring herself to hurt another person to attain information.

That's all she planned to do when she met this human; attain information, she told herself. She just had to wait for him to shake her hand.

"And _this_ is my good friend and leader Fox McCloud," Falco gestured delightedly toward the orange vulpine. Fox emitted a low, threatening growl and stretched out his right paw as his bright emerald eyes tore into the human with barely remitted hostility.

_What on Corneria has made Fox so hostile toward this human?_ Krystal wondered, and lost herself in the realm of her own thoughts before Falco's voice brought her back into reality when he introduced her.

She stretched out her blue arm, which seemed to hover in the air in front of her for an eternity before the human shook her paw. Then there was silence. She opened her mind, desperately searching the being before her for some semblance of a memory or thought, but she couldn't find anything. Inside the mind of Gideon Waller, she felt nothing. Not a single emotion or memory revealed itself to her. Krystal had felt this feeling of cosmic emptiness before from the cold, dead dinosaurs of planet Sauria, and the millions who evaporated along with her home world Cerinia.

Krystal was certain that Gideon Waller was dead.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so things are getting interesting. I introduced the President of the United States and I'd like to confirm that it is in fact President Harry Truman (1945-53). As always, I thank you for reading, and if you have any feedback for my story, please don't hesitate to review. And, most importantly, have a happy New Year!**


	3. First Flight

**A/N: I would like to thank LnCpl. Luke Tamaken, Comrade, and Vulaan Kulaas for your stunning reviews. This chapter would not have been possible to write without your help.  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 3: First Flight**

Before Gideon slept, he silently prayed to whatever divine force governed the laws of sleep that he wouldn't dream, that his sleep would once more be as blank and peaceful as the cold emptiness of space. But when he closed his eyes that night after he landed on Corneria, his prayers went unanswered.

His breath quickened as his mind was assailed by images of the past.

_The Warden beats the child for disobedience. The child escapes into a world of light that throws him back in the dark_.

His heart raced and his teeth began to chatter through the cold darkness of the night.

_The corpses lie on the ground, broken and cold, on a world that became a _sun.

He awoke with a gasp and the memories dimmed. He gazed around his room. Much of his belongings from the carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, the most decorated American ship in the War, lay in a cluttered mess throughout his new living quarters. He examined the space and determined that it was not much larger than his previous room.

_Governments rise and fall, empires expand and decline, but militaries will always be militaries; no matter the species. _He thought smartly in the blackness of the night.

He rested his head back on the comfortable white pillow and considered getting a few more hours of sleep before putting the Cornerians through a whole day of training, but the moment he closed his eyes, memories and horrific images once more began to filter through his brain and he woke up again.

_What the hell is happening to me?_

* * *

"I don't like it, General." Fox said as he gazed into the telescreen that lit up his dark room.

"Neither do I," the hound-general on the other end admitted, his voice taking on a somber tone, "but the Americans aren't going to be sending any troops to offset the Communist build-up on Corneria. At the very least their President let us keep one of their best pilots."

For a moment neither of them spoke, both considering more than most the future of their home world.

"It gets a little better," General Pepper continued, "the President put the human directly under my supervision, and I've given him a field rank of Captain."

Fox nodded hesitantly. "At least he'll have some sort of accountability," he replied unconvincingly.

"You don't like him," the general stated calmly, "I can understand why. Growing up in an environment like that changes a person, sometimes for the worst. But this man successfully fought the Axis aces of the Luftwaffe _and_ Japanese Zeros in the same war. At least give him a chance. Who knows; he might surprise you."

_That's what I'm worried about_, Fox thought silently and sighed. The sheer ferocity of the human Axis aces had recently become a field of study at many Cornerian Military academies. He remembered watching videos of the strange American and British fighters clashing with the technologically superior Nazi fighters over the Atlantic Star Cluster and the highly skilled Japanese pilots of the Pacific Star Cluster.

"Well, at least we have another pilot to help us fight against the Reds," Fox allowed himself a moment of optimism. For the moment, optimism was all he had.

The general nodded in understanding. "I'm ordering the training of the pilots there at CADA to begin ASAP. We can't afford to go unprepared any longer than we have to, and I trust you to get the job done."

"No rest for the wicked, eh?" Fox replied, smiling sadly.

The old general returned the same somber smile. "After this is over, we'll all hit the Officer's Club on 5th. Informal, off-the-record. Drinks on me."

Fox smiled at the offer and rose from his comfortable reclining chair. "I'll go wake the others."

* * *

The blue vixen heard a knock on her door. Groggily, Krystal dragged herself out of her military cot to get dressed.

Ever since she shook hands with the human Captain Waller, she had felt horribly exhausted. Of course, such exhaustion was natural whenever she gained entry to another being's mind, but in this case the feeling was far more potent.

Her body felt like a meteor that had fallen through a planet's atmosphere and smashed into the hard surface of the world, leaving an enormous crater where she, the living meteor sat intact, unable to move, while the world crumbled to ashes.

_What exactly did I see in that man's mind?_ She wondered silently as she tried sluggishly to get dressed.

When she had shaken the human's hand and gained access to his mind, she could make out no discernible sign that the human was even alive. But if that were really true, and there were no thoughts or emotions for her to analyze, then why did she feel so exhausted? Krystal wondered, and finished dressing.

The continued knocking on her door jolted Krystal back into her small CADA living space. She slowly walked up to the dark metal door before opening it.

An orange vulpine greeted her view. "Fox? What on Corneria are you doing here so late?" she curtly asked the dark figure, irritated at the interruption of her sleep.

"I'm sorry, Krystal," Fox said warmly and she instantly forgave him.

Krystal didn't know what it was, but whenever Fox did something stupid to make her angry, she found that she couldn't stay mad at him for very long, even in the rare occasions she wanted to. She gazed into his warm green eyes and waited for him to speak.

"I just got off a call with General Pepper. He says he wants us to get start training right away. He didn't say anything about what was happening behind the Iron Curtain, but I think something's going on."

* * *

The sleek, triangular Cornerian Arwing dominated Gideon's view. The wings, white and sharp, melded smoothly into the dark blue fins which jutted out on either side of the tailless cockpit. Aside from the central location of the cockpit, Gideon had never before seen a craft that looked so completely alien.

He walked closer to the fins and noted the silver-blue Cornerian logo of a gridded globe framed by a silver letter "C". In many ways, Corneria reminded him achingly of America and its idealistic views towards individualism and personal freedom.

Gideon, a creature who was himself for so long deprived of his own freedom, treasured the freedom of this new world he had been sworn to help guide and protect. To him, it felt as if he had been allowed to visit a world he instinctively loved, although he could never belong there, he knew. But he would do his best to protect it anyway, because, to him, it felt like he was defending his own home country to which he could not return. He was a creature caught between worlds, serving both, loving both, and rejected by both.

From what Gideon understood about Cornerian politics, the government was a federal republic, governed by a Cabinet of Ministers in a similar manner to how his own nation was governed by the United States Congress.

Like the citizenry of America and many Western nations, the everyday citizens of Corneria had the final say in how their government was run and which decisions were made. Under different circumstances, Gideon imagined that the Cornerians would have been a worthy adversary to any of the many totalitarian regimes that perpetually plagued human history.

But, lately, with the intervention of America in Cornerian politics, many of citizenry's decisions were ignored for the sake of economic and technological gains, Gideon remembered shamefully.

He shook his head and turned his gaze toward the energy cannons mounted on each wing. They were simple, humanitarian weapons, but they must have served their purpose well, for the Star Fox team was able to defeat entire hordes of Venomian and Aparoid craft that each possessed terrifying weaponry.

Still, he would have to see to it that the Cornerian craft under his supervision were equipped with more effective weaponry. But that would have to wait for now; he was here as a teacher, not a warrior, and his new students needed him if they were to survive the dark, crippling future that he was so certain was approaching them all.

"I see you landed okay," a woman's voice tuned behind him. His heart jumped at the surprise as he spun around and was met with a familiar sight.

The reddish vixen with the bright amber eyes surveyed him from a few feet away. In the distance, Gideon could make out the shapes of the Cornerian pilots dragging themselves into the large steel hangar in preparation for the first day of training.

"No thanks to you. You're the woman from the CADA control tower yesterday," he countered sharply, recognizing the alluring voice from his initial decent onto Cornerian soil.

"Oh, so you _do_ recognize me. And here I thought I was just a damned dirty animal," she answered, and made a sour face when he ignored her.

"Look," she continued, "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for the way I acted over the communications link yesterday. It was stupid, reckless, and unprofessional, and it'll never happen again."

He nodded, silently accepting her apology.

"That's it? Just a nod from the badass human soldier? No chewing me out for acting like an ass?" She exclaimed, her face red with frustration.

"Would that make you feel better?" Gideon answered, smiling slightly in spite of his irritation with the vixen.

"Yes!" she said before covering her mouth with her paw. He stared at her, mouth frozen half-open in surprise.

She shook her head and removed her paw. "I-I mean no. If you wanna live and let live, more power to ya," she amended. She turned to leave.

_Not so fast_, he thought silently, surprising himself.

"Wait," he called out to her. Sighing, she turned, registering him again with her bright amber gaze that radiated intelligence.

"Name and rank," he requested, suddenly lamenting the fact that he did not know the reddish vixen's name.

"First Lieutenant Hazel Bartlett," she replied seriously, the humor gone from her pretty face. "Sir!" she amended, "Ma'am! Whatever it is you humans call their male superiors!"

Gideon stifled a grin. He wasn't going to take the bait. "For now, Captain would be just fine," he said softly as he gazed into her amber eyes.

"Yes Ma'am! Sorry, yes Captain!" Hazel saluted smartly and grinned antagonistically.

_Okay, now she's pushing it. Time to teach her a lesson._

"You'll fly on my wing today, Miss Bartlett. Gotta keep an eye on you or that mouth will get you targeted by every man, woman, and…" he paused when he caught sight of the toad Slippy wobbling towards a fighter, "_thing_ in the sky who wish to maintain their sanity."

He turned to face the newly arrived Cornerians who were groggily drifting toward their Arwings, "Suit up, pick a wingman and get in a fighter; we launch at 0700!" he barked.

* * *

The cool, silent Cornerian engine hummed beneath her as Hazel ascended gracefully into the perfect blue sky above.

Hazel loved the sky, so peaceful and pure, devoid of right and wrong. Off in the distance, she could make out the thin cirrus clouds that grazed the heavens above. The warm blueness of her surroundings and the speed at which she soared above the distant, chaotic lands below made her feel like an angel.

The silence of her fighter's engine allowed her to enjoy it a little bit more. Then, suddenly, a dark rumble broke her silent reverie. She turned in her cockpit and looked on in wonder as the alien P-51 Mustang rose alongside her.

The giant silver-yellow fighter soared angrily into the open sky like a graceful eagle captured and honed for war. Hazel could make out the various weapons that adorned the beautiful hull like perpetual battle scars, detracting from the beauty of the otherwise graceful vessel.

She could scarcely imagine the ferocity of the human conflict which had warranted the need for such an overhaul of hellish weaponry, or, for that matter, the need for pilots like _him_. Her thoughts instantly painted the image of Captain Waller, the stone-cold American pilot. Despite her recent irritation with the enigmatic man, she found herself more and more drawn to the mystery that lay behind those distant ice-blue eyes. What tragic past made him into the man he was today? She wondered, and turned her gaze to the crescent sun rising on the horizon.

She watched intently as the Arwings and various Cornerian fighters from CADA each formed pairs. The human Captain had requested that each pilot pick a partner - or "wingman" - as he called it, to trail and follow.

Hazel heard the light beeping of her flight communications link as the relay station on the ground finished synchronizing communications between the various fighter craft. Together, they looked like a disorganized band of warriors defending a forgotten world, but she wanted, no, she_ needed_ them to have heart – to persevere. She wanted. She needed. She hoped.

* * *

While many of the pilots around Krystal were practicing anti-Soviet and anti-Cornerian maneuvers, Krystal was watching the horizon. Something was horribly wrong, she knew, but she didn't know what. For her, not knowing specifics was one of the most torturous aspects of having her ability. Often, her sixth sense alerted her to danger and allowed her to scan people's thoughts, but it would never do her the common courtesy of telling her exactly what was wrong, she lamented silently.

Part of the reason why she admired Fox so much is that he never _needed_ such an ability to do his job and do the right thing. He had saved millions of lives with little more than an Arwing and a handful of helpful pilots, and he had done it all without special abilities. Sometimes, flying with a man who carried such a legacy made her feel useless, although she wouldn't dare tell Fox. He had enough on his plate already without having to worry about her drama.

Krystal flew as Fox's wingman, or wing_woman_ - whatever the correct term was. She followed him through the open blue sky as she watched the horizon around her. As she did so, she barely noticed the subtle beeping of her Aerial Proximity Scanner.

"Fox, are you reading this? I'm reading multiple blips on my APS," Krystal voiced over the communications link.

"I'm picking it up, too, Krystal. No info on the IFF. Slippy, can you give me any information?" Fox ordered, sinking back into his natural element of leading a fighter group.

"Scanning," the toad's high-pitched voice filtered metallically through the communications relay. "Dangit! I'm counting upwards of twenty Cornerian fighters heading this way. They're closing within striking range of their energy weapons. Fox - they're not ours!" Slippy panicked.

Just when he said that, a yellow blast of energy caught one of the Arwings center-mass, ripping the hull to shreds and sending the burning fighter plummeting down toward the ground below.

"All ships break collective formation! We are under attack!" the commanding voice of the human Captain shot its way through the communications link. "Stay with your wingmen and return fire!"

* * *

Under normal circumstances, Falco would have felt right at home dodging energy blasts in his personal Arwing II, but these new blasts were coming from craft that were similar to his own; were his own. And every life he extinguished today wouldn't be some heartless Aparoid bug or greedy Venomian mercenary. He would be killing members of his own home world, people who could have just as easily been his neighbors growing up.

The thoughts died down, as did his sense of humor as his body kicked into overdrive and rocketed his Arwing after one of the enemy Cornerian fighters. The pilot was experienced, Falco could tell from the way he was constantly evading Falco's ship, but not experienced enough. Falco closed the distance between the two craft, lined up his sights, and let loose a volley of green blasts which torn the enemy ship to shreds.

"They got Ritchie! Those bastards!" Falco heard over his communications system and he quickly surmised that he was hearing the enemy's communications.

_If they didn't hate us before, the Reds sure hate us now,_ Falco thought silently into the chaos.

Around him, he saw a mass of Cornerian fighters firing energy bolts at one another, wounding each other, killing each other. Explosions rocked the sky around him as he zeroed in on another target and made the kill, sending the poor bastard smoking down toward the grasslands below, where he lit up like distant fireworks.

A large object flashed before his view, followed by another, slower object. Stunned, Falco craned his head and saw the human fighter, which looked more like a medieval weapon, tear apart an entire squadron of enemy fighters with orange energy blasts that incinerated the Cornerian armor. The Mustang emerged from the sudden mass of explosions unscathed and began firing at a new target.

_I'm glad he's on our side, _he thought silently, and rocketed toward his next target.

* * *

Hazel was having a difficult day. First, she had failed to get a rise out of the stoic human pilot, and had ended up getting herself stuck on his wing. She silently cursed herself for her lack of discipline. Second, the normally calm man who had assigned her as his wingman had suddenly become a demon once the unknown ships started firing, making it nearly impossible for her to follow.

The human P-51 Mustang rocketed throughout the aerial battlefield annihilating the enemy ships with its four energy cannons mounted on the fighter's wings and nose. She caught sight of an enemy Cornerian fighter closing in on her wingman, but she dispatched it before it could fire at him, earning a quick "thanks" as he rose to meet a new target.

She appreciated Captain Waller's instructions to always work in pairs. On her APS, she could see the enemy ships were quickly being singled out and eliminated, while the allied ships stuck together and covered one another.

Hazel was about to engage an enemy fighter that had drifted uncomfortably close to her when two bright yellow energy bolts whizzed by her cockpit. She could feel the sickly heat of the blasts penetrate through the glass as more energy bolts danced around her. Quickly, Hazel disengaged from the target in front of her and made an evasive dive toward the ground, flying faster and faster as her heart thumped harshly against her ribcage.

"I've gotcha, Hazel!" an avian voice blared out over the commlink and within moments a green explosion erupted behind her.

"Thanks Falco," she breathed a sigh of relief into the communications equipment.

Immediately after Falco's ship rocketed past Hazel, the fighter she had previously been pursuing began firing at Falco. Wasting no time, Hazel leveled herself with the enemy fighter fired a single green volley, scoring a hit on the enemy's engine. Within moments, the opposing fighter was engulfed in flames.

"Ah… heh, I guess we're even," the avian said lowly, his ego deflated now that someone had to save his life.

* * *

Gideon soared in his silver-yellow fighter like a demonic bird of prey hunting the enemy Cornerian ships which seemed to move unjustifiably slow in their attempts to evade him. So far, none had succeeded in doing so. His experience fighting the Luftwaffe and Japanese aces had more than prepared him for an advance scout of expendable pilots fighting a goddamned proxy war.

He thought nostalgically about how much strain the Nazi pilots in particular had put him through. Ruthless, cunning, and possessing unparalleled skill, the Nazi pilots used their technological superiority to their advantage as they gutted the Allied Air Forces.

The ships before him, however, were far less advanced and their pilots even less skilled. Their commanders had knowingly sent them to their deaths for the sake of minor intelligence, and it disgusted him.

He destroyed another enemy fighter.

What the Japanese fighters lacked in technology and skill they made up for in conviction. Their sheer force of will and brave, often suicidal tendencies lead them to take far greater risks under duress to gain the upper hand in dogfights.

The ships before him did not possess such conviction. They were pilots just out of high school fighting for a nation barely in its infancy.

Gideon annihilated another fighter. _Another kid dead because of me._

He loathed the eventual day when he would come across professional military pilots who had developed sympathy for the Red cause and defected. That was where the real threat lay, he recognized, and there was not a single thing he could do about it. Such thoughts reminded him of General Robert E. Lee, an honorable, successful general who developed sympathy for the cause of the Confederate States back in the 1860's. Under Lee's command, what had once been a ragtag rebel force quickly became the scourge of the Union as it leveled the border planets of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. The walled Union capital, Washington D.C., shielded from orbital bombardment, was barely spared capture. Over sixty million Americans died in that Civil War. Gideon could only speculate as to how many Cornerians would perish in this one.

* * *

Fox sighted the enemy fighter down his own fighter's nose and opened fire, dissolving the opposing craft into a cluster of debris that smashed into the earth.

He turned his Arwing around and was greeted with a mass of friendly fighters. Every enemy fighter had been destroyed and now burned brightly in the grasslands below.

A general chorus of "We did it!" and the decidedly more humorously dramatic "I'm alive!" erupted amongst the surviving allied fighters. He shook his head. This was no victory, he knew, and those fighters were no aces. _They were sent here to die, and we allowed them to do just that._

"Return to base, everyone. We have fellow pilots to bury," he crossly reminded them, and the various cheers stopped. He cursed himself silently for dimming the group's morale. As a leader he was supposed to encourage the morale of his troops, not discourage it, no matter what personal statements he might have to sacrifice.

* * *

The Arwings and other fighters of the CADA hangars returned solemnly to the ground which had bid them farewell that very morning. The pilots, quiet and tired, filtered out of the hangar and back to their beds, where some dreamed, others had nightmares, and the rest mourned the dead.

* * *

The procession was dark, but, the five brave soldiers who had perished in the conflict which would one day be known as the Battle of the Academy, were being laid to rest on the hallowed grounds of the Cornerian Military Cemetary. The loved ones, draped in black and teary, kissed the closed coffins before the soldiers' honored comrades lowered them slowly into their deep resting place, far enough away from the concerns of the world to peacefully slumber, yet close enough to the sky to dream.

Aside, the human Captain Gideon Waller raised the saxophone he had so long ago forsaken on the eve of the Second Great War. On the warm, bronze instrument he played a human hymn known as "Amazing Grace". The low, tragic notes mixed beautifully with the high, hopeful ones and the crowd gazed on, entranced, as he honored the dead.

* * *

In the distance, behind the Iron Curtain, in the formerly Cornerian city of Kaeto, the wheels of war began to turn.

* * *

**A/N: So, this chapter was much darker than the previous ones (smacks head for stating the obvious). But it was a lot of fun to write, especially the dogfight. I didn't originally intend for the chapter to end on such a low note, but I felt that to continue it further would defeat the mood. Again, I would like to thank all of my reviewers for giving me such kind, helpful feedback. And, as always, if you have any feedback or comments on my writing, lay em' on me. You never know how influential a single review might be in the coming chapters.**


	4. Detection

**Author's note: I'm loving the feedback I've gotten from this story, and I'd like to thank all my reviewers for their helpful, insightful opinions and comments.  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 4: Detection**

The two men stared at each other from across the cold, metal control room. Around them, the officers and enlisted men stationed at the CADA Control Center moved frantically at their individual stations. The white room which had stood so long in sterilized peace was now choked by chaos.

"Well, what would you have me do, General?" The greying hare spoke. His long ears pointed stiffly toward the polished ceiling above in spite of the chaos around him. His deep brown eyes, hardened by conflict, regarded the hound-general before him with an impenetrable gaze.

"With yesterday's attack, we're expecting a declaration of war from the DRC within the week. It was total chaos up there; if it hadn't of been for Star Fox and that human pilot, we would've lost a hell of a lot more than five pilots," the hound paused to allow a feline subordinate to hand him a handheld computer. He pushed the screen a few times and handed the computer back to the feline, who promptly whisked the crystalline machine from the room.

"I thought training our pilots more adequately would prevent things like this from happening, but… Peppy, my old friend, it's my fault those kids are dead," The hound-general's gaze sunk toward the tile floor below. "Training isn't going to amount to shit if I can't give my soldiers operable intelligence and organization. We need an eye in the sky to make sure those kids stand a fighting chance."

"And that's where I come in," the old hare surmised, smiling sadly. The hound nodded.

Peppy continued, "Are you sure I'm the right hare for the job? I had my hands full just overseeing the reconstruction of the Great Fox, and we're _still_ not even half-way done resurrecting the damned thing."

"If I weren't sure, you wouldn't be here," the General stated matter-of-factly, "Can I count on you?"

The graying hare sighed. "If you couldn't, I wouldn't be here," Peppy slightly mocked, earning a low chuckle from the General.

Peppy turned to leave.

"And Peppy," the general continued as Peppy walked away, "Keep em' alive."

* * *

Gideon Waller worked uncomfortably on the colors of his parked P-51 Mustang. The darkness of the night had not prevented him from working on new coat of paint for the American fighter.

"_No American colors!"_ The personal memo from his own President had echoed through his brain from the moment he had returned from the procession for the soldiers killed in the skies of the day before. Outwardly, he merely saluted and acknowledged the order, but inwardly he felt mildly offended. He had served his country with distinction, at least he preferred to believe, and now his own nation had traded him off to some foreign military power to be used like some inanimate commodity.

He paused to consider the weight of the President's decision to assign him into the ranks of the Cornerian Air Force.

_Am I still American?_ Gideon thought doubtfully at the stars which gleamed so distantly above. Their alien white lights danced like specters that twinkled just beyond his reach. _What am I now?_

Such thoughts drove him to work through the blank hollowness of the night. He painted and plastered new colors onto the gleaming silver metal of his plane with inexhaustible fervor until the thoughts dulled. He no longer cared about what he was. He no longer cared about the stars.

Gideon sighed and found his way into the cockpit which had housed him through hundreds of conflicts and encounters. The warm brown leather seat drew him in as his cold eyes slowly closed shut. The comfortable material of the pilot seat automatically adjusted to the contours of his back. His head slumped down onto the metal shell of the cockpit with a dull thud. His eyes remained closed.

Sleep took him soundlessly as it always had, but it was not a peaceful soundlessness. Images of brutal warfare and death played in a silent perpetuity behind his tired eyelids. And he felt an empty, incomprehensible pain that sent shivers down his spine. He felt pain in the quiet chaos, twisting in agony as he was silently tortured by the horrifying soundlessness of his dreams.

* * *

"Reports have just come in that the unidentified craft that engaged the CADA squadrons did in fact originate from the Democratic Republic of Corneria, or the DRC-"

Throughout the room, Fox's team looked on in horror as the local Corneria City news station replayed captured footage of the battle fought the day before.

"Can you believe _this_?" Falco asked no one in particular. Around him, the Krystal and Slippy sat haphazardly throughout the room.

Fox clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. Oftentimes, Falco could be stubborn and hotheaded, but he was very good at putting into words what the whole team felt. It helped ease the tension in the room, for which Fox was instantly grateful.

Falco looked up at him, his eyes questioning him, searching for a reason to hope. Fox hadn't seen his good friend worried so much since the Aparoids first began attacking Lylat.

Fox looked around at the irreplaceable pilots that made up his team. Falco had plopped down on the couch and was back to watching the news, Slippy sat off in a corner where his green, amphibious hands tinkered with some unknown piece of technology. Krystal, the blue vixen, sat on a windowsill on the far side of the common room.

"Buddy," Falco spoke softly, "Do you think there's gonna be a war?"

Fox looked back at his teammate, deeply considering what he should say. He felt the gaze of his teammates suddenly on him once again as he spoke. "I don't know," he answered truthfully, and a sudden silence fell over the group.

Movement from outside the room broke the team from its collective brooding. The grey, metallic door opened to reveal the reddish vixen that Fox recognized from when he first arrived at CADA.

The vixen's amber eyes surveyed the room studiously until her eyes settled on the blue avian perched on the room's comfortable grey couch.

"Hey Falco," the vixen said. When Falco responded with a soft "Hey" and didn't look up, the vixen glanced toward the rest of the group. "You guys too eh? Look, Command wants us in the briefing room in an hour." She didn't have to add _This is going to be all about yesterday._

"Thanks for the info. And yeah, we're pretty down under the weather," Fox admitted, "You're Hazel, right? Falco's friend?"

"That's right," Hazel voiced. She surveyed the room again. "I take it none of you happen to know where the human might be? He disappeared right after the funeral service yesterday and no one's seen him since."

"I have no idea where he is," Fox answered truthfully. After the human Captain had played his strange bronze instrument at the Cornerian military funeral service, he had seemingly vanished from the base. Fox wondered what it was that had caused the human to play music so beautifully one moment and shun other people the next.

"He'll probably show up for whatever Command wants to say about the damned Reds at the briefing. The stiff looked like he wouldn't disobey an order if his life _depended_ on it," Falco emphasized, suddenly joining the conversation.

"Sounds familiar," Krystal softly teased, looking at Fox.

Fox shot Krystal an accusatory look, at which Krystal smiled defiantly.

Noticing the sudden exchange between Fox and Krystal, Hazel started to withdraw from the room. "Yeah, you're probably right about that Falco. Well, I'll get outta your hair. Or fur, rather," she amended and clapped her hands together, "Gotta give you two lovebirds some space!" Hazel quickly left the room before Fox could retort.

Falco and Slippy chuckled and followed Hazel from the room, leaving Fox alone with Krystal. They gazed at one another uncomfortably, unwilling to meet each other's eyes.

Fox broke the silence, "I think we should-"

"Y-yeah. We probably should-" Krystal stammered, gesturing toward the open door.

"Yeah," Fox followed her out the door, his face burning bright crimson.

* * *

Hazel paused to fix her dark red hair before entering the crowded briefing room. Around her, numerous pilots chattered enthusiastically despite the events the day before. Hazel took in a sigh of relief. It was easier for her to pull herself together when she saw that others were capable of the same.

She checked her watch. The sharp, light-blue digits read _0809_. _Great! Twenty-one solid minutes to kill before the brass give us the bad news._ She thought silently and began to filter through the crowd of uniforms and flight jumpsuits.

One conversation caught her off guard.

"So you really fought the Nazis and the Japanese?" a young, nervous voice spoke, "I-is it true that the whole Second Great War started because the Japanese bombed Pearl Starport above the Hawaiian Planetary Rim?"

"For America, it did," a cool, familiar voice answered, "But the Second Great War started about two years before we got involved in 1941 when Hitler and his cronies invaded the Polish Star System in 1939."

Hazel turned towards the sound of the voice, searching for the speaker.

"T-that's really interesting!" the young voice spoke. "A lot of people here think that the war was fought just between America and the Axis."

"Back when I first enlisted as a kid," the cool voice sympathized, "I had no idea what started the war or why we were even fighting it."

Hazel turned and found the source of the voice. The pale, blue-eyed human Captain stood next to a young beige ferret.

"I can't imagine you as a kid, Waller," she made her presence known.

The Captain turned toward her and looked down upon her with his gleaming ice-blue eyes. The human himself stood a few inches taller than her. She involuntarily gazed down at his body. He wore a dark blue Cornerian flight suit that traveled down into a cuff above his black pilot's boots. Other than the absence of fur or scales, the human's physique was astonishingly similar to that of most male Cornerians. Hazel gazed back into his eyes. Somehow the human's eyes looked warmer and less hostile than they had when the Captain first landed.

"Neither can I," Waller answered whimsically and Hazel blinked in surprise. "Lieutenant Bartlett, this is Second Lieutenant Sam Carson," he gestured toward the young ferret who regarded her with nervous, uncertain brown eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Ma'am," Carson extended his right paw, which Hazel shook.

"Just call me Bartlett," the vixen answered. "Titles make my skin crawl."

"Y-yes Ma- sorry, Lieutenant Bartlett." Carson answered, grinning sheepishly as he made for a hasty exit. "Captain Waller," he acknowledged, and was absorbed by the crowd.

For a moment they gazed at each other, enjoying the crowded silence of the moment.

Waller broke the silence, "So I heard you were looking for me."

Hazel nodded and pursed her lips, "Yeah, Command said they wanted you to hear this briefing. Where the hell were you anyway? We had guys looking everywhere and we couldn't find you."

Hazel thought she saw a sudden grimace of pain stretch across the human's face when she asked him where he'd been, but it was gone so quickly that she shrugged it off as her imagination.

"I was painting," he said seriously, his cool blue eyes remained locked on her ambers.

Hazel looked at him disbelievingly. "_You_? Painting?" She exclaimed. When the human made no vocal retort she narrowed her eyes. "You're serious?"

He nodded.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Hazel amended, "Before yesterday, I'd have never thought you'd be the instrument-playing type with your fierce _Let's kill all Cornerians!_ look that you have whenever Slippy happens to be around." When he made a sour face she continued, "_Yes_, I've seen you make that face so there's no point denying it." She sighed, "Are all you humans this strange?"

"If we all were, would any of us really be strange?" Waller countered, smiling slightly.

Hazel grinned appreciatively. _Not such a dummie after all_. "Well, to us Cornerians you're all certifiable wackos, but yeah, I see your point. Um, no offense by the way."

"None taken," Waller offered, "Given what's happened over the past few years with the War and now this Cold War we're supposed to be fighting with the Russians; sometimes I think everyone's gone batshit."

Hazel opened her mouth wide in mock surprise. "Oo, a swear word," she exclaimed, "I think I like you already."

_What the hell did I just say? "I think I like you?" God, how embarrassingly corny,_ She chastised herself in a silent panic. Her warm amber eyes widened with a luminous intensity.

Hurriedly, before the human could respond, Hazel changed the subject.

"So, um, speaking of strange – what's the story behind your call-sign? Why 'Badlander'?"

_Whew._

The human shook his head in confusion at the sudden change of subject.

"It's where I'm from, Hazel," he stated softly, surprising her by using her first name.

_Personal questions call for personal answers,_ she reasoned. She suddenly regretted not knowing Waller's first name and wanted inexplicably to ask him what it was, but she waited for the rest of his explanation.

* * *

"New York is a massive moon-city of over one hundred million people," he paused, registering the visible shock on her face before she nodded, urging him to keep talking. He continued, "The skyscrapers that cover the moon's surface stretch well into the atmosphere. Most of the well-off people live up there in their penthouses and apartments. Me? I grew up down on the moon's surface where it's dark, cold, violent and most of the poor people live, or try to. The rich New Yorkers call that trash-heap 'The Badlands'. Heh, when I was there, I called it 'Hell'."

Hazel simply stared at him. Her warm amber eyes opened wide in shock and disbelief.

_Great, now she feels sorry for me,_ Gideon silently chastised himself for sharing parts of his past that even he himself would rather forget. No matter what he said to people, after people knew about parts of his past they always treated him differently; like he was a different person. And he hated it.

Hazel regained her composure and nodded to herself. "We all have our shitty childhoods," she stated sympathetically. She continued, "Most of the people who grew up in my neighborhood turned into druggies or thieves by the time they were out of high school. As far as I can tell, you came out alright, Mr. Stone-cold pilot and all," Hazel gestured playfully toward Gideon's Captain's insignias that rested his shoulders.

Gideon chuckled, "Well I'm glad you're open-minded about it."

Hazel smiled. For a second, she looked like she was about to ask him something when the grizzled military dog Gideon recognized from his arrival announced that the briefing was about to begin.

Instantly the room was a chaotic whirlpool of uniforms and flight suits searching desperately for a seat.

* * *

Navy Captain Jim Reynolds sighed as he gazed at the blue-green orb that occupied his view screen. An agrarian world, Corneria was covered in greenery, forests, and temperate zones. Save for the rainforests that dotted the equator and the deep blue oceans which dominated the surface, much of Corneria's environment would have been perfect for suburban development. At least that was what he had been told to believe, he considered silently.

Before the goddamned Communist uprising, his job overseeing the suburban development of the Cornerian populace had been so simple, he thought nostalgically. Now that those furry beatnik hicks on the surface had decided to go pinko and revolt, he and his ship had been reassigned to system-wide reconnaissance. He grumbled with distain.

It was a job that had gotten increasingly difficult once the DRC had managed to slip over five squadrons of fighters undetected across the border. The sheer ramming he had received from Naval Central Command at the Pentagon drove the notion home that he was hanging on to his own job by the skin of his teeth.

So when his tactical officer had suggested specific upgrades to the cruiser's detection grid, he'd given it the vehement go-ahead.

Since then, he'd done nothing else but sit down and observe the underdeveloped world before him. Nothing else at all.

"Captain! We've got contacts on the detection grid, Sector CC1!" An urgent voice rang about the cluttered gray bridge.

The Captain swiveled in his command chair to look at his scrawny, butterbar, supposedly prodigal tactical officer.

"Sector CC1? That's within two hundred kilometers of Corneria City. Can you verify the contacts?" he ordered seriously, his training and experience taking over.

"Uh, sir, I'm-" the new tactical officer stammered.

"If you've got information about the contacts, spit it out!" Captain Reynolds interrupted angrily. He silently cursed himself for his impatience, but his outburst had already traveled to all the listening ears on the bridge. His impatience hung in the air like the choking gas clouds of Los Angeles.

"I'm detecting several DRC ships on intercept course with Corneria City. From this distance, I make out fifty-seven fighters, ten urban bombers, and twenty-three multirole strike craft." The tactical officer indicated nervously.

He turned to his communications officer. A dark-skinned man with sharp, graying hair and chiseled features, the man radiated an aura of sheer experience.

"Notify the Cornerian Military right away," The Captain ordered. The man nodded and immediately got to work.

The Captain turned back to his tactical officer, "Scan the rest of the planet for more contacts!"

The young man simply gazed at the screen before reluctantly looking up again.

The Captain threw him a questioning look. _Now fucking what? Did Joseph Stalin just get nominated for sexiest man alive?_

"Sir, you're going to want to take a look at this…" the young officer mumbled nervously.

Irritated, the Captain left his chair and bounded across the room until he was face-to-face with the USS Saratoga's detection grid. His mouth dropped open.

"Notify Washington," he said to no one in particular.

* * *

**A/N: I have relatives who served in the Navy who told me countless stories about their adventures oversees, but I still feel pretty rusty on my military jargon and terms. I tried to make it as realistic as possible given the circumstances.  
**

**P.S. The term "butterbar" is usually condescending military jargon for a new officer with the rank of Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Armed Forces, most often the Marines (Or Ensign in the Navy, which is the ****U.S. Navy's**** lowest Commissioned Officer rank) because of the gold ("butter") bars they wear on each shoulder to signify their rank.  
**


	5. Red Sky

**Author's note: So far, the feedback I've gotten for this story has been extremely helpful in improving my writing, and I hope it shows. I'd like to thank everyone for their honest, supportive feedback.  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 5: Red Sky  
**

Gideon Waller slipped silently into the cold metal seat. As gazed out at the mass of Cornerian pilots and soldiers assembled around him, he could not block the images that filtered in from his ceaseless mind as his eyes involuntarily sealed themselves shut.

Standing single-file while the Warden inspected every _Miles Minor_ for weaknesses, the clustered soldier-children waited silently for the tortures of the day and the torments of the night.

The child Gideon stood deathly still like all the others. His cold pale skin matched the sterile white tile of the floor and walls, but his eyes, which gleamed a bright shade of cold blue, were as unfit for a human face as the cold, unknowable emptiness of space would be for a man.

His cold eyes gazed out at the faceless _Man_, a silhouette cut out of the fabric of time in the shape of a man. Gideon could still remember the cold, ripping power of the Warden's metallic voice, chilling him, torturing him, killing him. _Changing_ him.

For what seemed like an eternity, there was only fear and discipline, he knew. But in the sheer numbness that was the depth of Gideon's character and soul, his fear of life itself had kept him alive in times he believed himself dead.

He imagined himself walking once more through the hollow black depths of the city of lights. Trash and rubble littered the forgotten, decaying streets as far as the eye could see, yet something called to him in the darkness; some new light in the distance he remembered only in dreams. It was the light that taught him the Old Way and made him Live again.

It glowed like a beacon just beyond his vision. He could not see any light but the scattered embers that burned the landscape around him but he _knew_ it was there. He walked toward the Light, his tattered shoes ripping from the friction of every step. He felt stabbing pain in his blister-covered feet as he increased his pace. His body and soul, caked with ash and fresh with scars that would not heal even after time ended, shuffled painfully through the choking urban atmosphere. But he was close, he knew. So close. His heart sped as he began to run.

Just a little further…

An official, distant voice brought him out of his miniature slumber.

"Good morning, everyone," the voice rang out and Gideon gazed up at the podium which dominated the front of the spacious briefing room. An old gray creature that resembled a rabbit, the figure emanated a feeling of somber trust upon the pilots clustered in the briefing room.

Gideon had to blink his eyes at the sheer diversity he found on this new and strange world. Silently, Gideon was still processing the fact that the inhabitants of Corneria were all sentient versions of animal life found throughout the States and beyond.

The hare continued, "Command wants me to recount the terms of yesterday's engagement, but I'm not gonna do that. You all know what happened, and I'm sure none of you need to be told what's gonna to happen next," the hare put a paw on his chin in a thinker's pose. Every soul in the briefing room remained quiet and still.

_He must carry a great deal of weight with the Cornerians. I wonder who he is?_

Gideon turned to the reddish vixen who sat alongside him. Her dark red hair cascaded in haphazard waves past her face as if she had tidied up at the last possible moment.

"Who's he?" he whispered to her, gesturing toward the hare. Hazel quickly turned to face him. Even in the dimness of the room, Gideon could make out the amber orbs of the vixen's eyes. Those eyes fired out at him, dissecting him part for part as if they were surgeon's tools. Her gaze suddenly faltered for a moment before she sighed.

"That's Peppy. He was with Star Fox before their ship got blown up by the bugs," Hazel replied in a hushed voice.

"Wait a minute; I thought Pepper was a hound dog with droopy ears-"

Hazel smiled slightly and drew one of her paws to her face in a mock slapping motion.

"Everyone _always_ gets those two mixed up," she whispered back to him, her wondrous amber eyes lit up the darkness of her face.

_I can't possibly imagine why._

At the same time Gideon felt something tugging on his shoulder. He turned his head and glanced back until Fox, the leader of Star Fox occupied his view. Gideon didn't know what to make of Fox when they had briefly shook hands. The vulpine emanated the posture and presence of an officer, but lived as a mercenary who operated beyond the boundaries of the law.

_Why would a disciplined mind choose a life devoid of discipline?_ He wondered curiously, deeply considering his own military past.

Beside Fox, the blue vixen Krystal sat nervously, her analytical green eyes widened suddenly with fear. Gideon didn't know why, but he felt a faint tugging sensation in his head, the same strange sensation he had felt when he shook the vixen's hand. The feeling was so familiar…

_Could she be-?_ His mind panicked suddenly. Gideon clutched his chest as his heart crackled violently against his ribcage. _No- it's not possible! It can't be… I must be imagining things. Calm down, Gideon,_ he consoled himself, exhaling deeply._ Just calm the hell down. Think about food. Burgers. Pizza. Yum._

Fox shot Gideon a fierce gaze and slowly placed his index finger between his lips.

_Great. So much for a Cornerian not hating me and all._

Gideon gave Fox an irritated look before turning to face the front of the room. So far, Hazel, Falco, and the young ferret Carson had been the only Cornerians who hadn't outright avoided him in spite of whatever misgivings they might have had for his species. If he couldn't get their leader to trust him, then how could he ever hope to convince the other Cornerians to stop hating and fearing him?

Maybe he just needed to give them time to get used to him. _Yeah,_ he thought to himself, a twinge of hope brightening the dark mood within him.

_Maybe they just need a little time._

* * *

When the human turned his gaze back to the front of the room, Fox glanced at Krystal. The blue vixen looked suddenly more exhausted than she had a few minutes before. If it weren't their old friend Peppy giving the briefing, he would have considered that perhaps the vixen was bored. No; something else was going on, he decided.

"Are you okay?" he silently whispered to her.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. Something was definitely wrong.

"No, I'm…" Krystal didn't have an opportunity to finish.

A low, quaking rumble shook the dark briefing room. Instantly, the room was a quiet chorus of frantic whispering.

A flash of motion from the front of the room caught Fox's attention. Fox turned to see Peppy tough an index finger to his right ear, listening intently. The hare's brows furrowed and his face turned slate white.

"All pilots," the hare's voice boomed throughout the room, "Corneria City is under attack by DRC forces! Get to your planes immediately and engage the hostiles!"

The room immediately erupted into a cauldron of chaos as the desperate Cornerian pilots shrieked and made for the exit. Bright orange signal lights flashed to life as the alarm chirped mildly throughout the facility.

Another low rumble shook the room. In the distance, Fox saw one of the briefing room's circular overhead lights fall from the ceiling.

"L-look out!" He heard a high-pitched voice cry as the light fell towards a familiar blue avian. Luckily, the avian jumped from his seat, evading the light just in time as it shattered on the hard, concrete floor.

"Thanks, Slip," Fox heard the avian emphasize as he shoved a nearby toad toward the rear exit. "Guess I owya one!"

Satisfied that his other two team members were on their way to their fighters, Fox turned back toward Krystal, who had still not arisen from her seat.

"The DRC? How could they have gotten past our early warning outposts?" Krystal asked aloud as two canines brushed past her toward the rear exit.

"None of that matters now, Krystal," Fox ordered. He stood up and took Krystal's right paw, urging her out of her seat. Quickly, they both made for the exit. Fox was thankful that most of the pilots had already vacated the room. This left a clear path for himself and Krystal, but he could only imagine how many people would die because of his lateness.

Silently, Fox cursed himself for his hesitation and urged himself and Krystal onward, always onward, through the darkened grey hallways of the Cornerian Air Defense Academy.

* * *

"Good god! Do these hallways _ever_ end?" Falco squawked loudly as he ran through the seemingly infinite concrete walkways of CADA. His dark blue eyes flared oppressively with unceasing desperation.

Close behind, Slippy, Hazel and the human Captain followed in earnest.

A louder rumbling shook the building.

"That one was closer than before," Waller muttered without inflection, "They must have already started bombing the airstrip."

Slippy stopped and stared at him wide-eyed, "How can you sound so calm when people are dying!?"

The human returned the gaze coldly and clenched his fists before he decided to reply. "People are always dying. I was one of the first pilots to fly in to liberate the Nazi Necropolises, Genocamps, and Tartarian Worlds Hitler hid beyond the Glactic Barrier. When you're given that kind of responsibility, panicking will only get you killed," he stated calmly. His cold words reverberated silently against the low chaos of the bombs which bled unhindered from the distant red sky above. The light from the otherworldly sky filtered coolly through the hallway's few windows.

Hazel's eyes were drawn to the human's clenched hands. As Waller spoke his hands began to shake. She glanced at Falco who met her gaze and narrowed his eyes worriedly. _He notices it, too, _she recognized silently.

"Nazi Necropolises… Genocamps… What the hell went on out there?" Hazel gasped silently as a shiver trickled like cold water down her spine. Her soft voice caught Waller's attention.

Waller gazed at her silently. His crystal-blue eyes seemed to stare right through her. For the first time, Hazel couldn't perceive any of the ancient coldness that seemed typical for the human pilot's gaze. At that moment the otherworldly gaze that dominated his face appeared to be something that seemed more alien to her than his hardened demeanor. At that moment, Hazel was sure that the human looked… _lost_.

The human seemed ready to speak, but Slippy interrupted before he could utter a word.

"Yeah, that's assuming you _care_ enough to save them in the first place!" Slippy shot back, clenching his green, amphibious fists. Waller blinked at the interruption and his normal face returned.

"That's enough, Slippy!" A commanding voice barked from further back in the hallway. Hazel was silently grateful she didn't have to hear about the ghoulish works of the cosmos that could haunt a man who seemed more in control of himself than anyone she had ever met.

Hazel turned to see Fox McCloud and the blue vixen Krystal quickly shuffling toward the group.

Slippy shot Fox a challenging look, and for a moment the two old friends glared at each other unflinchingly. Finally, Slippy drew back and sighed. Fox relaxed his posture and turned to address the group.

"We're all on edge and we all have a right to be, but right now Corneria City; our _home_, is under attack," Fox glanced at the human and for a moment the two shared something imperceptible between each other. The human nodded for the vulpine to continue.

"Captain Waller's right, you know; we can't panic. Not now. I won't let it happen," he stated hopefully. He gazed at Krystal who nodded to him softly as if to reassure him: _You don't have to worry about me._

"Buddy, that was about the coolest speech I've ever heard, but it ain't gonna stop the baddies from blowing up the whole goddamn city!" Falco threw his wings up in frustration and continued to trudge through the hallway.

"HELP! Somebody!" a distant voice cried out from the darkness of the opposite end of the hallway.

The group turned to face the blackness of the empty hallway. The cries did not continue.

"We _have_ to go back," Krystal voiced, gesturing frantically towards the origin of the distress call, "Someone might be injured, or worse."

"Yeah, whaddaya gonna do? Last I checked telepaths couldn't heal people." Falco protested, his face turning red with anger. "Last _I_ checked Hazel is the only one here with medical experience, and even then, we need her to deal with the people who're causing this mess!"

"Wait a minute," Waller interjected, and looked directly at Krystal, his blue eyes widening. "You're a telepath? A _mind-reader_?" The human's voice grew low and calculating as if he were examining an expected threat.

Krystal glanced back at the human nervously. "Y-yes I am. The people from my planet had the ability to read people's minds. What's it to you?"

"In my country, we-," Waller shook his head, "We need to focus on the problems at hand. Hazel," He turned to face the reddish vixen, "You have medical experience?"

Hazel nodded, "Yep. Well aside from a touch of arthritis I'd say I'm pretty good. I'll go back for whoever's in trouble. You guys get in your fighters and deal with those bastards," she pointed her index finger upward and turned to walk away.

"Wait," Waller offered, taking a step forward. "I'll go with you."

"No, Captain." Hazel declined softly, "Your place is in the sky where we need you. I'll join you once this is taken care of. I promise."

"Captain Waller, Hazel's right. We need all the pilots we can get and we don't have much time," Fox interjected, "Let's move, everyone!" He turned and began jogging down the hallway. Slippy, Falco, and Krystal immediately followed. Their light footsteps echoed softly throughout the hollow space.

For a moment, Waller and Hazel gazed at each other silently in the darkness of the poorly-lit hallway. Hazel smiled slightly and nodded at him. Waller returned the gesture and turned to leave. Silently, Hazel watched as the human sprinted quietly into the blackness like a pale phantom flickering in the night. Hazel stood still and watched him intently until he was gone. Sighing, she pivoted to walk the opposite way and allowed the darkness to envelope her.

* * *

"Damn," Fox gasped as he gazed at the broken skies above. He could make out the distant dots of the fighters, all Cornerian, exchanging fire at one another. Ships exploded in the forlorn skies beyond like distant muzzle flashes. The sky itself glowed dark red despite the earliness of the day.

Krystal put a paw on his left arm and squeezed lightly. He looked back towards the blue vixen and gazed warmly into her green eyes.

"I know," he told her softly as he slowed down his breathing, "I know, Krystal. Don't worry about me." He turned to face the rest of the group, "The hangars look pretty much untouched. Grab a fighter and-"

A sudden _BOOM!_ erupted over the CADA landing strip. The group instantly turned to gaze upon a smoldering husk of broken metal that might have once been an Arwing. Shrapnel from the impact scattered in every direction, shattering glass and ricocheting off the pavement.

"Dammit!" Falco yelled as he dove for the black asphalt, "The Reds are shooting us down before we can even take off!"

"Where's the AA support?" Slippy glanced around him.

"The guns aren't firing!" The toad shrieked, glancing at the large silver turrets that stood motionlessly around the airbase's perimeter.

In the distance, a small fighter-group of Arwings began to hover. Their sharp silver wings extended gracefully in the breezeless morning. Together, Fox thought the ships looked indomitable, untouchable. They gleamed brightly like a squadron of angels set to battle the darkest demons of the cosmos.

Instantly, twin volleys of venomous yellow energy fell from the sky and obliterated the ships before they could ascend any further. Two green fighters blazed past the molten wreckage and shot up into the sky.

A crowd of engineers which had gathered near the group of fighters scattered like the rubble of an impact crater. The searing heat of the metal rain that fell upon them forced the engineers to stagger away from the broken fighters.

"Dammit," Falco muttered as his gaze met the ground below.

"They're going to come back for another pass," Waller voiced matter-of-factly into the smoldering morning air. He turned to face Fox, "We can't take off until we get rid of the fighters above us. You Cornerians wouldn't happen to have bazookas by any chance?"

"_Bazoo_-what?" Falco blared anxiously. His sharp avian eyes widened.

"Never mind," Waller answered shortly as his mechanical gaze scanned the assortment of buildings, pavements, and hangars that stretched for over a mile into the distance of that decaying morning. A familiar shape caught his eye.

"There," he pointed at the metallic object. A fallen feline soldier clutched the hulking pipe-like scrap of metal that glowed with a custom paint job of bright neon orange. Bright pink lettering on the side read: _**DAT ASS**__!_

Krystal cringed at the blatant vulgarity of the lettering. "This can't possibly be what saves us…" she stated lowly. A defeated gaze spread slowly across the vixen's beautiful face.

"It just might…" Fox mused as he sprinted onto the black pavement.

When Fox came upon the object, he stopped. _It just might,_ he repeated silently to himself as he examined the fallen weapon before him. He allowed a hopeful smile to play about his face. Sitting on the ground in front of him was a loaded Cornerian CZ12 Homing Missile Launcher.

* * *

The overhead lights of the darkened hallway flickered in the stale indoor atmosphere. Hazel quietly shuffled through the hallway. She knew she should move faster. She knew that someone out in the darkness probably needed her. But the darkness reminded her of that time not so long ago, chilling her although she knew ever since she was a little kit that there was no such thing as monsters. It reminded her of the time she scrambled from the ruins of her own life to make something of herself. And now she was going back; back into her old life. The dark life.

She wanted to stay back. She wanted to flee, to run; to climb back into flawless skies above and escape into the heavens. But someone here needed her. Someone here called to her. So she moved forward, calmly forward, into the dark.

A muffled cry woke her from her private reverie.

"Hello?" She called as warmly as she could into the coldness of the world around her.

She heard a faint shuffling, then a low groan of unmistakable pain.

"I'm a doctor," she promised the distant figure. _At least I used to be._ "I can help you!"

"O-over here," A familiar youthful voice croaked as a figure shuffled through one of the open doors into the hallway.

Hazel froze. She could just barely perceive the figure in the poorly lit hallway. Low rumbles in the earth shook her from her mental stasis.

She quickly stepped toward the figure. The once-dark outline of a figure suddenly became clearer. She gasped in recognition.

"Carson?" she called out to the young ferret. His beady brown eyes surveyed her with a fragile youthfulness that was not apparent in the dire state of the rest of his body.

"Yeah, it's me, Ma'am, u-um Lieutenant Bartlett," Carson winced, obviously in more pain than he was letting on. He continued, "I was on my way Main Operations Center to attend my post, but when I got there the place was caved in under a bomb. So I ran towards the Auxiliary Center, but I tripped on some stairs and fell on my leg wrong," he shifted his body to get a better view of his right leg, "I think it's broken," he clenched his teeth and groaned.

Hazel crouched next to the quivering ferret to take a quick look at the leg. The darkness prevented any sort of reliable visual observation, but as she moved her hands down the injured leg, she felt it. _Definitely broken_.

Suddenly, the ferret made an attempt to lift himself up.

"Not so fast kid," Hazel warned. She placed a holding paw on the Second Lieutenant's back. "You're in no condition to be moving that leg. Just sit tight and I'll get you something to splint that leg with."

"N-no, you don't understand. Once the DRC military realizes that Star Fox is staying at this base, they'll bomb us until there's nothing left." The ferret justified, and made another attempt to move.

"You think I don't know _that_?" Hazel countered, her tone becoming more assertive. "We have to have faith that Star Fox will get rid of the enemy ships before they find out," she sighed, "There's nothing else we can do."

"CADA's AA Systems went offline when the MOC was smashed," Carson emphasized. He struggled to turn his head to meet her bright amber gaze. "If you can get me to the Auxiliary Operations Center in time, we'll be able to help them out!"

* * *

Gideon swore under his breath as he dodged a yellow volley of pure energy that lanced out at his feet. Luckily, if his past had taught him anything, it was that he should always be quick on his feet. He was thanking whatever force had taught him that lesson which he carried out today as he dove blindingly fast across the scraping black asphalt. Behind him the yellow bolts singed into the dark pavement, sending a foul, artificial choking stench into the atmosphere around him which burned his nostrils and brought water from his eyes.

A dull itching sensation in his right arm alerted him to mound of blood that was seeping from burn marks and numerous perforations along the upper back of his arm. _It'll heal fast_, he recognized silently, and sure enough, the sensation in his arm was already beginning to dim. He tore off the upper part of his flight jumpsuit, wrapped it around his upper right arm and tied it there to stave of the bleeding and conceal the wound. _Helping myself heal while maintaining group morale all in one_, he remarked dully to himself. More than anything, he was sick of repeating the training drilled into his mind since he was a child. But that was all he knew. And all he knew couldn't be wrong. Could it?

About thirty feet from where Gideon had dodged the energy volley, his new companions crouched behind a burnt-out maintenance vehicle that had once presumably been used to repair and preserve the base's aircraft. But not anymore. Husks, no matter how useful they once were, couldn't do anything but sit around until the world decided to die, he considered silently. _Am I thinking about the vehicle or myself?_ He asked. He did not have an answer.

A low whirring sound echoed throughout the airbase. Gideon turned to see the two bastards in the fighters above were streaking across the red sky to make another pass at the base.

"Shit!" he heard one of his Cornerian companions squawk, "Fox- shoot em'!"

A loud clapping sound emanated from behind the burnt-out vehicle, followed by two red streaks of smoke that injected themselves into the broken atmosphere like viruses into a host cell. The missiles veered toward the approaching craft at unmatchable speeds. The first missile incinerated the closer craft instantly. The bastard fell like a tumbling fireball that exploded in the distance with a loud _crack!_

The second missile exploded brilliantly in the dark red sky, and, for a moment, Gideon thought that second craft had been annihilated along with the missile, but a sudden streak flew clear of the explosion. The surviving ship was trailing smoke. Both wings were gone, and the craft appeared to be tumbling directly towards the group.

"Fox, we've got to move! Drop the launcher and let's go!" A desperate feminine voice erupted from the chaos. Gideon glanced sideways in time to see Krystal and the Star Fox team dragging a resisting Fox McCloud from behind their temporary cover. The ship in the distance blazed closer and closer, trailing a dark tail of smoke that extended for miles into the air.

Gideon dove behind a nearby building, silently praying that it would provide enough cover. The piercing sound of the falling craft drew nearer and nearer.

And then it stopped.

A low, humming sound replaced it.

Gideon cautiously poked his head out from behind cover and what he saw astounded him. Somehow, the damned pilot had managed to flip his craft into hover mode and there it stayed, hovering barely ten feet above the asphalt of the CADA airstrip.

The craft was somewhat different from the ships he had engaged the day before. The ship was characteristically Cornerian; its shape pointy and triangular, but it hefted an additional energy cannon along the nose in addition to the cannons which would have been mounted on its absent wings. The paint of the ship was also a peculiarly dark green camouflage speckled with small bits of black and grey. A red star adorned the hull just below the cockpit.

Suddenly, the ship turned towards the general direction of Gideon's group and opened fire. The energy cannon chirped piercingly across the open space of the CADA runway, tearing up buildings and land vehicles with ease. The burnt-out vehicular husk which had once served as cover for Star Fox now lay in an unrecognizable ruin.

Weaponless, Gideon could not hope to fight a craft which could merely turn and vaporize him with a rapid-fire energy cannon. He glanced at his surroundings. Office buildings, hangars, and screaming engineers dominated the scorched landscape around him. His eyes finally settled on a familiar building which just-so-happened to house a very familiar possession of his. _This just might work_, he thought quickly as he took off in the direction of the building.

_ Yeah, and I'm Audie Friggin' Murphy._

* * *

Krystal was not having a very good day. Aside from being questioned about her abilities by a crazy human, her team's leader – her closest _friend_ - had decided to sacrifice himself so he could insure that everyone would be safe. She was having none of that hero nonsense today, she told herself as she forced the big dumb fox behind a building once the hovering fighter began firing.

He gazed up at her with those round puppy green eyes that never failed to make the ladies melt. She forced herself not to smile. He wasn't going to get any rewards for being an idiot. So far, Fox hadn't found the courage to ask a specific someone out on a specific social occasion. _Yet_, she corrected herself, remembering Fox's remark during a trying conversation with herself and Tricky the dinosaur not so long ago.

A sudden volatile scream silenced the incoming energy volley. Cautiously, she and the team moved from out of cover to take a quick peek at what was happening. What she saw confused her more than when she first set foot on the technologically advanced planet Corneria after living on the backwater Cerenia and Sauria for her previous years.

The wingless fighter, obviously sensing the vocal scream turned toward its source. The dark-haired crazy human hefted a strange-looking wooden rifle-like weapon.

Before the ship could attack the human, the alien weapon erupted in a sudden burst of red rounds that exploded into the pilot's cockpit, killing him instantly, Krystal could sense. The ship crumpled, smoked, and clattered harmlessly onto the ground once the cockpit's controls were destroyed.

Slowly, the team filtered out from behind cover to gaze in confusion at the human who hefted the strange weapon with beaming aura of pride that Krystal never would have associated with this human.

"W-what kind of weapon is _that_?" Falco choked up, pointing at the archaic-looking destructive force that rested in the human's hands.

"This…" the human spoke, smiling slightly. He hefted the gun in the air with one hand and continued, "Is my Tommy Gun!"

"Isn't that a line from an old movie?" Fox questioned lightly, grinning in spite of himself.

"None that I know of," the human retorted guardedly, clutching the sub-machine gun protectively.

"Heh, maybe it hasn't been made yet," Falco gestured toward the human. "After all this is over, you might get yourself a movie deal for the stunt you just pulled."

"Hah, maybe so, maybe so," the human smiled genuinely, albeit nervously; Krystal could tell from the lack of hesitation in his face. He looked a lot less scary when he smiled; almost attractive in a foreign sense, though she wasn't interested in such things. She instantly wondered why he didn't smile more often.

"Look! Off in the distance!" Slippy's voice woke the group from their premature celebration.

"Oh, crap," Fox muttered silently as he gazed at the horizon.

Krystal looked at the human once more and saw the horrific process of his face sealing up and becoming _cold_ again. At that moment, she couldn't tell whether or not the human was a complete genius or an insane psychopathic wreck.

She turned her head to behold whatever apocalyptic vision awaited her in the corrupted skies above.

Off in the distance, several unfamiliar craft were quickly approaching the CADA airbase. She sensed their intentions were not pure.

* * *

**A/N: Another chapter done, and the longest yet (around 5000 words = new personal record). Of course, this is nothing compared to authors who can churn out 10000 word chapters every week, so rest assured, my ego isn't growing out of control. I promise.  
**

**And yes, the Tommy Gun scene was an honorable reference to the "boomstick" scene from the ****classic ****Bruce Campbell ****flick Army of Darkness which simply oozes awesomeness. If you're into B-movie action flicks, I highly recommend it for a couple hours of mindless fun.  
**

**P.S. The made-up term "Tartarian" is not a misspelling of "Totalitarian". It has a specific place in the story's universe and I promise its meaning will eventually be explained.  
**


	6. An Aerial Tomb

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Fox. I promise.  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 6: An Aerial Tomb**

The young, injured ferret winced sharply as First Lieutenant Hazel Bartlett fastened the make-shift splint to his lower leg. Upon searching one of the nearby rooms, Hazel had come across a janitor's closet rife with brooms, mops, and wrapping equipment which were highly useful in the construction of make-shift leg splints, Hazel recollected.

Once the splint was fastened, she paused to take the ferret's pulse. _Good… His circulation isn't blocked,_ she thought quickly and emitted a low sight of relief.

The ferret made another attempt to stand.

"Oh, no you don't, kiddo. Stay still," the Doctor within her warned. She shook her head. "You can't put any weight on that leg just yet." She stood and quickly left the small dark enclosure that housed Carson's immobile form.

"Here," she retrieved a small wheel chair and set it in front of the young ferret, "I found this hunk of junk in the Rehabilitation Lounge."

The ferret looked at the reddish vixen strangely, obviously confused. For split second, Hazel envied Carson's apparent unfamiliarity with serious injuries. A brief vision of blood flashed nearly imperceptibly across her mind, causing her to shiver involuntarily.

Hazel sighed and continued, "You can't put any weight on that broken leg; not unless you wanna do something stupid and damage it more than it already is," she placed her hands underneath the mammal's prone form and began to lift him. He was surprisingly light despite being nearly as tall as her.

Carson winced as he settled into the cushioned seat. His right leg rested immobile on the attached footrest Hazel had already set up for him.

"S-so… you're a medic?" She didn't answer. "A doctor?" he ventured as they began to move. The hallways glowed darkly with the emptiness found only in places that have been abandoned.

Carson didn't see Hazel's face grow dark with recollection of a past long forgotten and buried. Her eyes, once vibrant and golden with intelligence, sunk into a dull blaze of brooding copper. For nearly a minute, only the fathomless hallway that skidded by his vision offered a silent answer to his question.

"Yeah," Hazel lied softly as she pushed the wheelchair through the deserted building. The absence of people in the military institution disturbed her. During her prolonged stay at CADA, she rarely had a moment to herself, and now the entire building seemed empty. _Shouldn't there be people moving about coordinating a counterattack?_ She wondered nervously. _ Where the hell is everyone?_

"These hallways seem so…" Hazel trailed off when they turned a corner. In the distance, a room glowed brightly against the darkness of that chilling morning.

"Deserted?" the ferret volunteered. "Maybe-" he grunted slightly in pain and shifted in his wheelchair, "Maybe after the Main Operations Center got bombed and we lost power, people figured the building was just a sitting target. Most of the civilians and ground personnel have probably been evacuated to the underground shelters."

A distant, feral scream filtered lightly though the hallway. Hazel stopped for a moment to listen. Immediately after, a low _clat-clat-clat-clat_ echoed from somewhere in the distance.

"Let's go, Lieutenant!" Carson demanded, gesturing toward the lit room down the hallway. "We're running out of time!"

* * *

Gideon Waller strapped his Thompson submachine gun to his back climbed up into the cockpit of his gleaming P-51 Mustang. The warm leather chair he had grown so fond of awaited him like a bed would await its owner each day. But this was no time for rest, Gideon knew. He unequipped his Thompson and slid it into the conveyer underneath his chair. He heard the subtle click as the automated organization systems within the craft hooked the gun into his Ejection Survival Pack.

Satisfied that his weapon was stowed properly, he thumbed the ignition and the newly painted fighter roared to life. Within the enclosed hangar, the majestic silver-blue fighter growled with a feverish intensity, professing its readiness to once more be thrust into the gruesome wonder of aerial warfare.

Meters away, the Star Fox team hovered near the entrance to the hangar in their gleaming Arwing II's. The main doors slowly slid open, allowing the somber glow of the distant red sky to penetrate the barely-lit hangar.

"Okay, guys, I think the enemy knows we're here," Fox's level voice crackled over the communications equipment. "I got a message from Peppy saying that the enemy has not deployed paratroopers over our soil, but the Air Force is still bogged down over the Capital and can't send us reinforcements."

"They must be trying to weaken the Cornerian assets before they start a land invasion, and Star Fox is most definitely an asset," Gideon agreed, scratching the thickening stubble on his chin. "That's textbook Imperial Japanese warfare; quickly level an area with sneak air attacks, then move in and take the ground positions."

"Hah. The pansies aren't even invading yet. Let's just get up there and mop em' up!" Falco's voice blared over the Mustang's audio equipment.

Gideon sat in silent admiration of the avian's open passion for the defense of his homeland. In many ways, Falco reminded him of many young, gung-ho American pilots who smoked cigarettes, listened to Frank Sinatra, and took girls to the movies. Most of those poor, rebellious souls flew sorties into the darkest depths of space only to never return. Only Falco had somehow always returned unscathed. For an unprecedented moment, Gideon wanted so much to _care_, to live – to be able to see the things only a soldier sees and keep his soul intact. But it would never be so, he knew.

He was born a soldier and he would die a soldier; alone, forgotten, abandoned on some distant otherworldly tomb that only the most distant stars would shine upon. He would never be loved, Gideon accepted, but wished that one day far into the future someone would stumble upon his ancient resting place and _remember_.

_But wishes are for children_, he quickly reminded himself and renewed his focus upon his Aerial Proximity Scanner. Several red blips on the far corner of the map slowly inched their way down toward Gideon's own position in the screen's center.

"Don't get cocky, Falco," Gideon warned, "They're here to do serious damage, and if their dedication is anything like that of the Japanese they're going to take extreme, even suicidal risks to make sure they destroy us all. I've seen great pilots and starships get shot down during Japanese sneak attacks because we underestimated our enemy."

"'Don't get cocky, Falco,'" the avian imitated through the communications network. He grunted in self-confidence, "Says the human who screams like a maniac before downing a fighter with a machine gun!"

"You think _that_ was a big deal?" Gideon retorted, smiling despite the gravity of the situation they were about to thrust themselves into. "You should've seen the Gang Wars during the Depression – Al Capone and his bootlegging boys once brought down a _frigate_ using just Tommy Guns. The-" he paused for a moment, considering some far-off memory, "The Neo Legion did the same with swords."

"Bah, _lies_!" Falco practically belched into his communications equipment. Gideon could immediately hear the subtle laughter of Slippy, Krystal, and even Fox, who Gideon was absolutely certain hated everything about him.

"Alright, that's enough, boys," Krystal intervened warmly, as a loving sister would between a quarrel amongst two brothers.

_Does this mean they've accepted me?_ Gideon wondered urgently, and for a fleeting moment his thoughts brought up the image of the reddish vixen Hazel who'd actually survived a conversation with him. He suddenly wished more than anything that he had Krystal's frightening ability to read other creatures' minds just so he could know for certain what others felt of him. _No, it doesn't mean that,_ Gideon corrected himself sullenly as the image faded. _It's just banter designed specifically to improve morale and insure mission success; nothing more._

He slumped back into his seat, his heart beating slower with each passing second. His blue eyes hardened and became cold once more.

"Tally-ho, everyone," Fox notified level-headedly, " I'm reading twenty-seven blips on the APS. Can you guys recommend an approach?"

For the second time since the group activated its vehicles, Krystal spoke: "If the Captain's right and these fighters are practicing a high-risk, high-reward fighting strategy, then it's probably best we surprise them in the sky to throw their edge off," she voiced mechanically.

Gideon was very surprised at how the normally feminine, somehow English-accented voice became rigid and analytical when discussing combat strategy. She reminded him of the female English fighter pilots from across the Commonwealth of Worlds who were normally warm companions off-duty, but instantly became flying bringers of death in their Spitfires once a Nazi squadron was sighted. He was instantly curious as to whether or not Krystal's home world had been part of the Commonwealth or even the British Empire sometime in the past.

"I think you're right Krystal," Fox agreed, "Okay everyone; once the enemy settles overhead, we'll launch and take them by surprise. Charge your weapons and ready engines; we're in for a hell of a fight!"

* * *

Hazel watched urgently as Sam Carson tattered away on the nearly powerless controls of the Auxiliary Operations Center. Unsurprisingly, like much of the rest of the base, the blinking room was deserted save for the various buttons, dials and screens which glowed brightly against the darkness despite their low power.

_It only takes a small flashlight to see in the dark,_ Hazel mused silently, and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She wanted more than anything to run, to dash toward the hangar bays scattered throughout the CADA airbase. She wanted to take a fighter and blast off into the skies, because at least then she would be able to affect the outcome of the battle above. She sighed helplessly. She glanced back at the injured ferret as he tapped urgently at the controls. For now, at least, she had a purpose; a reason to keep going, she considered unconvincingly.

"Oh, crap," the ferret glanced at one of the consoles in front of him, tattering on the controls fervently.

"What? What's going on?" Hazel asked, her brow furrowing. Her bright amber eyes lit up like stellar orbs shimmering in the blackness of space.

"I-I can't do it!" Carson professed loudly, and slammed his paws down on the lifeless gray console before him. "I did everything I was supposed to, and the AA Systems still won't activate," he protested and glanced at another screen that blinked in front of him. "And the Team's about to launch! Shit!" He swore and moved his arms to cover his face.

Hazel grabbed his arms before he could do so and looked into his eyes, an intense expression spreading across her face.

"Okay," she took a deep breath and released Carson's wrists, "You're under pressure, kid, I get that, but right now we need you. Please don't give up now."

The ferret nodded somberly and immediately went back to work. "I'm sorry," he mumbled and quietly returned to his work on the controls before him.

"Can you patch me in to the Team before they launch?" Hazel didn't know why, but she felt like she had to say something.

Carson nodded and pressed a few keys on a silver-gray metallic board. He retrieved a microphone and held it up to Hazel. She took the small, screw-like device and held it up to her chin.

"Testing, testing," she voiced unnecessarily through the communications link. Immediately, the sound systems in the Operations Room crunched incomprehensible static before low, unintelligible voices answered her call.

She continued, "Captain, Fox, everyone; it's Hazel," she paused to collect herself, hoping that Captain… she didn't know his name, she lamented silently… no, the _Team_, she corrected herself, could hear her, "The Main Operations Center was destroyed in the initial bombing; that's why the anti-aircraft turrets aren't working. But I ran into a techie who needed patching up and long story short, he's working on a way to get the AA defenses back up and running. But guys," she gulped, "he needs more time…"

* * *

"He needs more time…" Fox barely interpreted through the communications equipment within his Arwing. Around him, the Star Fox team; his friends hovered near the outer doors of one of the bigger hangars on the CADA airbase.

A violent mechanical roar erupted from behind him. He turned and what he saw astonished him. The medieval-looking human warplane, newly painted Cornerian blue with the reflective silver of the hull, hovered within meters of Star Fox's Arwings, and just as gracefully, Fox considered.

"The communications systems in the base must've been damaged," Slippy surmised between the ships. A low shuffle of mechanisms could be heard over Slippy's microphone. He continued, "Dangit! There doesn't seem like there's anything I can do to fix the link!"

"Ah, screw the link!" Falco squawked, "We need to buy Hazel more time!" His Arwing inched ever-closer to the threshold of the poisoned realm beyond the hangar.

"Wait," Fox held up a warning hand. He scoffed lightly and quickly brought the hand back down to the Arwing's controls. _Yeah, hand gestures to people in other ships. Good thinking, Fox. _He chastised himself quietly and shook his head. He glanced back at his Aerial Proximity Scanner and continued, "Wait," the red dots moved closer. _Almost there…_

A dark rumble crackled from somewhere in the distance.

"Now!" He throttled the engines of his fighter and quickly cleared the hangar. The Arwing's inertial dampeners kept the g-forces from causing him any discomfort as he ascended violently into the dark skies above.

* * *

As he ascended into the glowing morning sky, Falco could scarcely believe his luck; the dark green enemy fighters had separated into distinct fighter-groups that lagged behind the closest attack group. He estimated that there were no more than six fighters within attack range; easy pickings for the Star Fox team.

He moved behind an enemy fighter, intercepting it rather than mimicking its panicked movements as a rookie would. Within seconds, the enemy fighter was within his sights. Wasting no time, Falco launched two volleys of green energy that smashed into the enemy fighter, destroying it instantly.

"Shit!" he cursed as a large piece of scorched rubble streaked past his cockpit like a demonic shadow.

"Are you okay, Falco?" Falco's wingman Slippy asked as he destroyed his own enemy fighter.

"Yeah, Slippy. It's nothin'," he warmly reassured the toad. Although Slippy was easily the smartest member of Star Fox, he never performed well under emotional pressure that was a non-negotiable constant during aerial conflict, Falco knew.

_Everyone has a weakness,_ Falco thought somberly as he tracked another fighter. Suddenly, a red missile screamed through the air and pounded into the enemy fighter, completely incinerating it. The remains of the fighter trickled down to the broken earth below in filaments of ash and melting metal. He turned his head and saw the American P-51 Mustang roar past his cockpit like a prehistoric lion striking out majestically against a pack of descending hyenas.

_Missiles on fighters?_ Falco thought doubtfully. He instantly wanted to ask the American Captain why his fighter didn't use the more advanced Charge Beam which could also lock on to enemies and never ran out of ammo. But as he took one more look to survey the complete and utter destruction of the enemy fighter, he had to wonder if the Charge Beam really _was_ more advanced. He shook himself back into reality and quickly regained his focus.

Falco took a moment to glance at his APS and surveyed the skies around him. All of the initial attack fighters had been destroyed. The remaining twenty-one fighters awaited menacingly in the distance like reapers of the dead.

"Good job, everyone. The immediate airspace is secure," Fox's voice filtered commandingly through the communications equipment. "We've lost our element of surprise, so be extra cautious once the rest of the ships enter the area of engagement."

"I'll take point," the human's cool voice emanated smoothly from the Arwing's interior speakers. Instantly, the giant silver-blue fighter took position ahead of the Star Fox fighter-group. The Arwings formed up behind him. Fox and Krystal occupied the human's left while Falco and Slippy formed up on Waller's right flank.

Off in the distance, Falco could just barely perceive the outline of the distant Cornerian capital that stood like jigsaw shadow against the glowing red sky. He could just make out the distant flashes of light as ships exploded over the graceful city. _Are we winning?_ He thought hauntingly about the implications of the alternative as he sat miles away, unable to save his city.

Suddenly, four red projectiles freed themselves from the alien fighter's wing and rocketed forcefully towards the enemy battle group. The missiles glowed like venomous fireflies as they streaked across the reddish sky beyond. The red projectiles tracked their targets with stunning accuracy and within moments four enemy fighters were tumbling towards the ground in the form of black snow and molten rain.

* * *

Krystal watched in awe as the American missiles incinerated their targets without a shred of mercy or error. A sudden realization dawned upon her. _This just might work, _she thought silently and opened her mouth to speak.

"Fox, I have an idea!" she spoke enthusiastically across the communications network.

"I know what you're _thinking_, Krystal," Fox replied wistfully. For a second, Krystal could have sworn that the vulpine was actually smiling. Krystal scoffed silently at Fox's latest tease and waited for him to continue. "Falco, Slippy, Krystal; I want you to power up your Charge Beams. As soon as the enemy gets into range, lock-on and take out as many of them as you can before they return fire."

Krystal nodded at the order and flipped a red switch on the Arwing's control console. She heard the soft mechanical whirring as the ship adjusted its power levels for sustained weapon charging.

_It really is a shame we don't have any bombs loaded,_ Krystal lamented silently, and thumbed the second trigger that rested on top of the Arwing's throttle. Instantly, visible green energy snaked along the outside of the silver-white hull and accumulated on the ship's pointy nose like an emerald sun.

The energy began to thrash violently ahead of the Arwing's nose and Krystal turned off the energy diversion switch. Instantly, the green energy which once snaked along the hull of the Arwing dissipated and the Charge Beam regained its stability. Automatically, a red targeting square appeared on the ship's Heads Up Display and began to hover across the glass canopy.

Krystal scanned the horizon, searching for an enemy craft that had wandered into weapons range. Within seconds, a low chirp clicked from the Arwing's speaker and the red target square centered on one of the closer enemy ships. She opened fire.

* * *

Gideon watched from within his fighter as the green ball of energy rocketed across the open sky and collided with a distant enemy fighter, sending it trailing smoke toward the ground below. Almost immediately, three more green orbs of energy made their way towards the enemy fighter group.

The first two orbs smashed into the pointy enemy fighters, shattering them into clouds of metallic rubble. The third orb snaked into an enemy fighter, ripping off one of its wings. Although the fighter managed to stay afloat, its long-lost wing fell back and smashed into the glass canopy of a fighter directly behind it. The skewered fighter promptly span out of control and collided with an adjacent bomber that made a vain attempt to evade the incoming vessel. Both ships crumpled mid-air and began falling toward the ground.

_What? No explosions?_ A primitive part of Gideon's mind wondered darkly. As if on cue, the explosives within the bomber ignited and the mash-up between the two ships lit up like the New York starline. _Much better._ With that, the dark thoughts subsided.

A sudden thud woke him from his appreciation of the make-shift fireworks. He looked around just in time to see a yellow blast of energy lance out toward his ship and slice across the Mustang's right wing. Fortunately, the plane's armor prevented serious damage aside from a dark burn mark that stretched vertically across the wing.

Gideon regained his focus and throttled his fighter forward, speeding blindingly towards the enemy fighter-group. His sudden increase of speed caught them by surprise as the enemy fighters fired randomly across the sky in a sudden panic. Gideon quickly dodged the clumsy energetic attempts on his life and nosed down toward the enemy group, triggering his fighter's four super-heated plasma casters. The orange blasts of directed energy phased into the two fighters directly in front of his path, incinerating them mid-air. Immediately after, new blasts of yellow energy snaked past his ship. Gideon banked his fighter downward and increased his speed, shooting across the atmosphere in an effective retreat.

Around him, Gideon could perceive the remaining enemy fighters attempting to surround and pick off the members of Star Fox, but they held their own, dispatching six more enemy fighters that crumpled like distant blazes of energy.

"This…" the Mustang's auditory speakers crackled over the battle. "Lieuten… lett."

_Hazel?_

"This is Captain Waller to Lieutenant Bartlett," he answered, pausing to dodge a sudden volley of energy bolts. "Say again, I repeat, say again."

"AA… ready. Lieuten… Car... rep… turrets." The voice crackled, seemingly oblivious to Gideon's response.

"Are you guys getting this?" He switched to address the rest of the Star Fox team. "I think the AA Systems at CADA are back online," he added hopefully.

"Yeah, I'm getting it, too," Fox answered. A low rumble resounded over the communications channel. "Damn it, that was close." The orange vulpine continued, "We're out of range of the base, so I don't think – unless you're thinking what I'm thinking." Fox's voice took on an uncharacteristically enthusiastic tone.

"I am," Gideon confirmed, smiling slightly, "We're going to lead those clueless bastards right into the hands of those AA guns."

* * *

"They're _what_?" Carson blurted out, staring flabbergasted at the small room's APS. Behind the green blips that represented the American Captain and Star Fox, several red dots pursued with near-equal speed.

"The Team's coming home!" Hazel joked darkly, smiling. "Flip the switch, kid, and let's roast the suckers who're chasing 'em."

Carson's eyes widened slightly in realization. He smiled slightly, "You got it Sir – sorry, Sir - I mean Ma'am! Sorry, _Ma'am_, or whatever it is we Cornerian men call our female superiors." The ferret chuckled slightly.

Hazel's amber eyes flared up at the sudden barrage of titles, yet the circumstance of each carried some sort of familiarity that she could almost barely grasp. She shot Carson a questioning look as she picked up a pencil and squeezed, easily snapping it in half.

The ferret gulped, his dark eyes losing their usual nervous glee.

"Waller totally paid me to say that the first chance I got," he admitted nonchalantly, his gaze drawn toward the floor.

"That sneaky bastard," Hazel mused, smirking, remembering a conversation between them which had gotten her stuck as his wingman. "And here I thought he didn't he didn't have a sense of humor. It was _still_ kinda lame," she continued. "Um, don't tell him I said that," she amended suddenly.

"Oo, the plot thickens," Carson replied with uncharacteristic confidence as he returned to the console and typed in a few commands.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Hazel pried, suddenly on the defensive. She crossed her arms and glared unrelentingly at the injured ferret.

"N-nuthin," the ferret stammered and snickered softly despite his apparent nervousness. He clicked a few buttons on the console in front of his cushioned wheelchair. Suddenly, his entire side-portrait drained of color and the ferret went silent.

"Something wrong?" Hazel asked, her face beaming with relentless intelligence once more.

"T-the emergency power generator should kick in automatically like it should whenever we get cut off from the Grid and the primary generator fails," Carson stated somberly.

"Wait a sec," Hazel exclaimed, "You mean to tell me that even though you managed to somehow get the turrets running, we don't even have enough power to fire them?"

"That's correct," the ferret replied, his voice starting to shake. Suddenly, his arms started a flurry of activity upon the consoles in front of him. Various technical images and schematics buzzed across the screens in front of him. The ferret's eyes, seemingly unaffected to the sudden changes in imagery, followed the progress of the screens with a seemingly unreachable level precision and comprehension.

"That's the emergency generator room," she stated somberly when the ferret settled on a familiar schematic. She had often visited the room in the past during the mandatory engineering course she had barely survived during her training.

Memories of circumstances before suddenly began to surface within her mind; memories from a time she had lived under the shadow of the Dark Life. Hazel shivered involuntarily. The impending possibility that she would once more be dealing with complicated technology somehow chilled her more than the oncoming swarm of hostile fighters and bombers.

And at that moment she knew what she had to; without question she knew. She stood up numbly as if something else were occupying her body, driving her very soul. She left the room without a word or gesture, oblivious to Carson's younthful calls which reverberated timelessly against the dark hallways Hazel sped down. At the end of the hallway, she caught her first glimpse of the darkening sky beyond. She hesitated for a moment, just a moment, to admire the redness of the distant world above before she continued forward.

* * *

The yellow bolts of energy slipped violently past Gideon as he thundered his majestic silver-blue fighter across the nameless molten sky like a warrior abandoned by the stars and rejected by the people below. And now the ones from below had arisen to claim him in his nameless home. But he would never let that happen, he knew. The sky was his home; his tomb. He was the shard of a man chipped from the cold ice of the stars in the heavens and cast down into the gaseous perpetuity of the skies. And the ones from below _hated_ him for it, rejected him for it, and now sought to strip him from it.

Gideon was beyond hate, he knew as he sped ever-closer to the CADA airbase, where perhaps some salvation awaited him in the future. Hate was an object from Below, in the world of Man and Cornerians. Hate had no place in the sky or the stars above, but once intelligent had found a way to visit the strange beauties of the skies and the cosmos, hate spread across the universe like a disease; a virus whose singular appetite was everything.

Memories of the metallic Warden _Legatus_ and the tortures that always followed flashed before his vision like a nightmare that had somehow spilled into reality. Gideon shook his head and remembered Wishes, the bane of all nightmares; the things that were for children.

His blue eyes sparkled as he contemplated the welcoming arms of people who would gaze upon him and see something other than a monster, and lift him into the heavens once more.

He reached the forlorn base and the images faded, the people turned to ash, and the prospects of ceremony were ripped unceremoniously in half like sheets of paper composed of time and hopelessness.

Gideon was suddenly struck with a dire realization.

_The guns aren't firing. I've led the enemy to an undefended base!_ He panicked quietly and shook off his sudden bout of panic. He throttled faster and banked his fighter across the sky to face the enemy.

_Undefended, my ass!_ He shook his head as he sighted the nearest enemy fighter and opened fire.

* * *

Hazel ran faster than she had every run in her life. Her dark red hair whipped coldly against hollow morning air as she approached CADA's generator building. The dark, metallic building stood dauntingly above her like a make-shift shack that had once housed the tools of otherworldly giants.

Further above her, still, the sky had suddenly grown dark and she felt the subtle trickle of the rain that skittered down her fur and collided with her dark navy flight suit. Amongst the coldness of the rain, the blurred silhouettes of the fighters cast their vengeance upon one another in the form of technological lightning.

Quickly, she entered the building and ran down the hallways that flickered chillingly in darkness, oblivious to the crackling thunder of the fighting ships above.

At the end of the hallway, the confined space opened into a flickering room. The hulking form of the emergency generator awaited her like a baton of light that sparkled defiantly in the darkness.

She approached the glowing generator slowly.

_It looks just like…_ she couldn't think the words. They had erased themselves from her mind the moment that her old life had ended. She shook her head and walked up to the generator, suddenly undaunted despite the darkness of the moment and the closeness of her memories. She found it. The lever. The switch that would transfer power from the emergency generator and end the shameful conflict above. At least for now. She pulled the lever and was immediately greeted by the distant droning of the AA guns stationed across the airbase.

She didn't hear the broken fighter above as it fell toward her.

* * *

The cold, masked figure stood imperiously against the window that blocked the radiation from the beautiful yet treacherous star of this new system. The Lylat System, the figure considered disdainfully. Populated by impure, subhuman creatures barely worthy to lick the grime off a human's boot, this primitive system practically begged for its own annihilation. And the figure was not one to deny the cries for death.

"My Lord; the aerial phase has been completed," a new voice stated dully, "Despite losses sustained from Star Fox, Corneria has never been more open for invasion."

The figure turned to gaze upon a shadowed presence which shared the room. Not a single decoration or piece of furniture graced the unliving space. The room was tiled and cold. The air they breathed was empty; stale. Within the unholy room, the visible light itself felt _dead_. It as if the individual photons in the room had been sapped of their energy, but still glowed chillingly in the soulless vacuum of that room.

"Yes," the figure replied without inflection. "And after the Americans lost exclusivity of their Kinetic Bombing technology to the Soviets, the threat of mutual annihilation will prevent either side from interfering. Not even _Neo Roma_ has the influence to force an intervention. You will have your war, animal. Given Corneria's destructive little conflict against those… _insects_," Masked spat distastefully, "and the technology the Soviets are providing for the DRC, such advantages will insure that the War and this System will rest in your hands, so long as you adhere to our… agreement."

"Yeah?" Shadowed shot the figure a challenging glare, "The Cornerian cause was lost once they started letting the Americans shove people off their land to build their McDonalds and their conformist suburbs," Shadowed shook its head, "No; the Cornerian military doesn't concern me or my generals. What _does_ concern me are those mercenaries from Star Fox! What do you plan to do about _them_?" the shadowed figure emphasized. His voice reeked of weakness and impurity, the masked figure recognized with disgust.

"Star Fox is immaterial. Since the _Greatest_ War ended, we have stood still, waiting as we have for over a thousand of years after the Fall. We will not wait any longer, especially not for the incompetence of a _primitive_," Masked warned coldly. Shadowed trembled slightly and took a step back.

"U-understood," Shadowed complied wisely, "But what of the Mustang pilot. This… Waller?"

For the first time, Masked showed a minor semblance of what Shadowed might have considered an emotion.

"Ah yes; the American _legionnaire_," Masked mused chillingly. For a startling moment Shadowed could have sworn the masked figure was smiling from underneath the black hollow contraption it wore over its face. Somehow the prospect of seeing the figure's dark grin chilled Shadowed more than the emptiness of the cosmos where no life could hope to exist.

"A-an American? Fighting against us?!" Shadowed clenched his fists, "I will-"

"You will do as you are _told_," the masked figure growled, and the room grew colder than the black vacuum that existed mere inches beyond.

"Capture him alive," its voice rasped coldly, scraping into the thin layer of glass that separated the derelict room from infinite chaos. "We have great plans for him."

* * *

**A/N: Wow, that was a fun chapter to write! I find that the more I continue this story, the more fun it becomes to write; it truly is a remarkable and rewarding experience, especially with all the great feedback I've received over the past few weeks.  
**

**Special notice: Vulaan Kulaas was kind enough to donate some OC's to help me write this story. Watch out for them in the coming chapters!  
**


	7. Fire and Ice

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox.  
**

**A/N: This is the first chapter of Badlander that will feature Kivuli Solarex and Andrea Jade Bowman; OC's that are most exclusively a courtesy of Vulaan Kulaas. Thank you very much, Vulaan!  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 7: Fire and Ice**

Gideon blinked as the gargantuan silverfish guns on the planet's surface lit up in a brilliant melting haze of blue energy. Immediately the numerous enemy fighters attacking the base attempted in vain to escape the bolts that collided into them from below. All around his P-51 Mustang, the dark green enemy fighters fell, trailing dark smoke as they crashed into the distant grasslands below.

"Airsp…" a distant voice crackled over radio static, "…nitized. Enemy is retre… repeat the enemy is retreating!"

An omnipresent chorus of celebration erupted over the various communication channels throughout the local airspace. Despite the situation, Gideon allowed himself to feel a momentary sense of pride now that they had somehow successfully fought off the enemy attackers.

"I can't believe we did it!" Slippy cheered over the communications equipment.

"Something's wrong," Krystal's astute feminine voice spoke nervously.

"What's going on, Krystal?" Fox asked. "Do you sense something?"

"There! Look at the emergency generator building," she continued.

Gideon gazed out of his cockpit, scanning the numerous dark buildings that dotted the landscape. _Where in the hell?_

And then he saw it, shimmering madly in the dark like confetti from the bright, molten pits of hell.

"Oh crap, it's on fire!" Falco swore, "Can you sense anyone in there, Krystal?"

There was a long pause before Krystal answered, during which cold rain silently tattered away at Gideon's glass canopy.

"I-I think so," she offered, followed by a series of audible clicks and beeps. "Damn! I still can't contact the base!"

"It doesn't seem like emergency crews are responding. I'll go check it out," Gideon offered softly as he throttled down his silver-blue fighter toward the gleaming building below. He pressed a few glowing buttons on the control console in front of him and was rewarded with a subtle beep as the craft switched into hover mode. He heard a soft whirring from outside as the landing gear extended itself. Satisfied, he further pushed the Mustang downward until he heard the faint crunch of the gear colliding with the black asphalt below.

He depressed another switch and the glass canopy opened with a soft _hiss_. Wasting no time, he leveled himself against the side of the fighter and dropped down to the pavement. Above, the Star Fox Arwings screamed across the dark world of the Cornerian sky. Their quiet engines howled frighteningly in the darkness as they patrolled the local airspace.

Gideon stood up and ran toward the burning building. He held up an arm to shield his sensitive eyes from the unholy glow of the crippled construct.

"Hello? Anybody in there?" he shouted into the rubble. The dark embers crackled wildly upon the molten metal, drowning out the life of his echoing cry. The scent of melting metal and fallen ash entered his lungs, burning him from within. He resisted the urge to cough and crouched lowly as his training kicked in. He silently cursed himself for neglecting to wear his filtration mask that now sat unused back in the Mustang.

A long, sharp, metallic object sat in the center of the dark debris. _Is that a wing? _He thought urgently as he surveyed the crumbling piece of metal. As he inched closer, he became more and more certain that some fighter had crashed into the building, annihilating the building and possibly destroying CADA's emergency generator. He sighed quickly and sent his mechanical gaze out across the wreckage once more.

"Argh," a low, distant voice suddenly grunted over the low crackle of the flames. Gideon moved closer to the wreckage. A sudden flicker of movement caught his eye. Within meters of the flaming building, a large shard of metal shuddered. Beneath it, Gideon could just barely perceive a familiar silhouette writhing back and forth underneath the metallic debris.

Gideon quickly ran over towards the figure, ignoring the scathing heat of the building as it lapped savagely at his exposed arms. Slowly, the glow from the collapsed building illuminated the figure.

"Hazel?"

* * *

Hazel took a moment to reexamine her situation. She had been about to leave the goddamned emergency generator building after single-handedly saving the base from the Commies, but now some object just had to crash into the building. The explosion had sent her barreling across the pavement, scraping her arms and legs. And that would have been fine if a massive hulk of metal had not managed to fall across her prone form, pinning her to the black, molten asphalt below.

"Hazel?" a cool voice filtered over her from the darkness.

"Waller?" she recognized. She gasped lowly as she tried futilely to life the heavy shard of metal once more.

Several footsteps clicked quietly over the pavement as the figure stood over her. She took a second to gaze upon those cool blue orbs, sharp facial features, and dark hair once more. He stood above her, silhouetted marvelously by the flames. To her, the human had never before looked so entrancingly alien. She quickly considered the possibility that the human might be alien even among his own kind.

Hazel shook her head and met his crystalline eyes with her molten ambers.

"You just gonna stand there?" Hazel criticized sourly and tried once more to lift the metal block with no result.

Wasting no time, the human grunted and placed his rough hands underneath the metal. Hazel blushed slightly as the human's hands brushed gently across hers. When he turned to look in her eyes, she turned her head. No, she was _not_ blushing, she reminded herself. It was just the heat.

She heard a soft grunt as the presence above her slowly dissipated. Immediately, she turned her head to find that the metal block hovering above her. She heard a loud _clam_ as the human seemingly effortlessly threw the rubble into the fire, where it was greedily accepted by the flames like an offering to some distant god of chaos.

_How the hell did he lift that?_ She asked herself silently. She had spent months training her body for military work, and this human had spent mere seconds lifting an object that she could not lift in minutes.

"Are you alright?" the human asked as he held out a hand. Hazel waved it off and stood up slowly.

"Y-yeah, I'm just dandy, Cap." She took a few steps forward. Suddenly, a wave of nausea washed over her and she stumbled into a warm object. She looked up and saw that the object just happened to be the human's chest. The warmth of his body felt strangely comforting despite the sharp, ambient heat of the moment. Instantly Hazel regained her senses and recoiled, resolving to finish the walk by herself.

"Hazel, you're injured and exhausted. Let me help you," the human made a move to wrap her left arm around his shoulder to steady her. This time, she accepted and leaned on him as they slowly trudged away from the glowing fire.

"How did you know where to find me, Skipper?"

"Krystal _sensed_ that there was someone in the wreckage of the emergency generator building, so I decided to help if I could." Hazel found it curious how Waller practically spat out the word _sensed_ as if it represented some form of taboo or otherwise unacceptable phenomenon.

Hazel stopped to look up at him, her hot eyes prying into his, trying to discern some sort of secret or mystery that made up the man's life and the strange worlds he left behind.

"Oh, and call me Gideon," he continued silently as they began to walk again.

"That's a beauti-" she slammed her mouth shut before it could blather on any further. "Um, aren't there regulations or rules that say I'm supposed to call you 'Captain' or 'Sir'?"

"Let's just say _titles make my skin crawl_," Gideon mimicked, smiling slightly. She shot him an irritated look that only seemed to make the furless human even more satisfied with himself. _Argh, you are completely hopeless!_ She broadcasted over her imaginary telepathic network. Alas, the only response she received came in the form of two dull thuds from her head, which she instantly believed could be translated into two humorous, though decidedly graphic words.

_Screw you too, Brain._

"We're here," Gideon voiced quietly as he gently set her down on the pavement near the Mustang.

"I take it you have medical supplies in there?" she ventured as Gideon walked toward the gleaming silver fighter. The human simply nodded and clambered ruggedly onto the fighter, disappearing into the cockpit. For a disturbing moment, Hazel thought she heard voices coming from the fighter, but she dismissed it as her imagination.

After a few minutes, Gideon returned, brandishing a large dark green pack slung over his shoulder. He rummaged through the pack before producing a bottle of transparent liquid. He held it up to Hazel, gesturing for her to take it.

"Drink."

She obeyed, savoring the refreshing taste of the fluid as it spread throughout her body. Hazel held the bottle in front of her and nodded with approval.

"Holy crap, I feel so much better now! How the…" she tried to stand once more. Her legs wobbled and for a second, Hazel was convinced that she was about to plop back down on the asphalt like an idiot. But somehow she stood her ground.

Hazel handed the bottle back to Gideon, who promptly placed it back in the pack.

"What on Corneria was in that bottle?" she asked frantically. If she had something like that back when… _things could have been different_.

"Malakhim Water," he replied simply. "Straight from the Ice Mountains of Neo. Only a few gallons exist anywhere else in the galaxy."

"Malakhim?" she mouthed, stunned at the prospect that water could reinvigorate, much less instantly heal an injured person.

"Back before there was an America or a Soviet Union, or even faster-than-light travel, the Roman Empire ruled much of mankind. But they didn't last." His eyes suddenly grew distant, as if he were considering something deeply forbidden from his past. Her eyes pried into his once more, and once more he did not relent. Gideon shook his head and spoke once more.

"Anyway, after the Empire fell after fighting some war, the whole Earthspace was reduced to rubble, but the Roman survivors had found a new place to call home; an ice planet they called _Neo Roma_, or 'New Rome' in Latin. They later found out that they weren't the first ones there, so now they just call it _Neo_." Gideon concluded cryptically. She stared at him, enthralled with the story he had provided. She had never before heard of a _Neo Roma_, nor, to her knowledge had anyone she knew. She was about to comment when he continued, "Now they call themselves the _Malakhim_, preaching Western philosophy and preservation of 'our' culture." He scoffed and glanced upward at the darkened sky, "But the corrupt hypocrites just use their tech and soldier-legionnaires to keep America in their sphere of control. They didn't help during the Depression and they sure as hell aren't helping now."

He sighed and gazed into her eyes once more.

"Sorry about the long story, Hazel. Sometimes, I just don't know when to shut up."

_I know the feeling_, she sympathized, not hating him for the first time since he saved her from the fire.

Gideon cracked his knuckles and turned to face the burnt-out building, whose embers were slowly beginning to die.

"You were one of them, weren't you?" Hazel recognized softly as she walked up behind him.

_But how could you have been? _She wondered silently.

Gideon continued to face the dying fire. At that moment she wanted nothing more than to touch him, to get to know him, to understand him. But she was beginning to understand that even though his body stood mere inches from hers, Gideon occupied a different plane of existence from normal people. Whether he wanted to or not, the beautiful alien before her would always be a stranger, and with that thought her heart sunk within her chest.

Suddenly, the low whir of engines distracted the pair from one another. Gideon and Hazel turned to behold a large, silver-blue aerial command craft as it settled onto the pavement near the Mustang. Sleek, but rather large, the command craft easily dwarfed the American fighter.

Slowly, a latch alongside the craft depressed and a large ramp cascaded down onto the pavement. A dark figure stood silently in the doorway, watching intently.

"That's Peppy," Hazel breathed and turned to face the human, prying his stoic form for answers. "What's he doing here?"

Gideon turned to face her again, his cool blue eyes lancing through the darkness like bolts of electricity. The air around her suddenly felt warmer, more clustered, devoid of anonymity under his unrelenting gaze.

"He's here to take you to Fichina."

* * *

"I can't believe Command wants us to go _Fichina_, of all places," Falco blared out from across the bunk room. Light wafted warmly off the dark blue walls, cascading peacefully into the room. On one end of the long room, ten double-decker bunks stood rigidly opposite the various desks and entertainment devices. But no one in the Star Fox team busied themselves with any of those things as they stood huddled in a circle, speaking silently.

The avian shivered slightly as if to emphasize his lack of desire to travel anywhere near the Lylat System's only ice planet.

Fox turned to speak. "You heard Peppy; the Commies have been more active on Fichina than anywhere else in the System."

"But why?" Falco retorted, his blue feathers bristling. "There's nothing there except snow and, um, snow."

"How descriptive," Krystal teased. She chuckled when Falco shot her an angry glare. She turned to face Fox. His entrancing emerald eyes looked deeply into hers. "Fichina _does_ have a large supply of natural resources," she allowed, swallowing her sudden nervousness, "but I don't think that's what the Reds are there for."

"I agree," Fox complimented. "There has to be something else to it; the DRC wouldn't launch a massive strike over resources that would take months to mine while we could simply harass them from orbit. No; something else has to be drawing them there."

Krystal shifted in her seat and nodded.

"When the hell are Hazel and the Captain gonna get up here so we can get this ship movin'?" Falco blared as he fiddled with a toy Arwing, obviously bored with the subject matter.

"I thought _you_ didn't want to go to Fichina?" Slippy exclaimed loudly. Suddenly, Falco's face grew dark. The avian wore a blank expression as he nonchalantly threw his toy Arwing at Slippy. It collided unceremoniously into the toad's right foot and rebounded onto the dull blue floor with a barely-audible _tic_.

"Ow." The toad croaked sarcastically.

"Now, now, we don't throw airplanes at people," a new, cool voice broke into their conversation. The four pilots turned to see Waller, Hazel, and the ferret Carson walk into the bunk room. Fox heard a silent _purr_ as the Cornerian frigate's engines started them on their way to Fichina.

"It's an Arwing!" Falco blared, and retrieved the fighter, cradling it in mock-defensiveness.

Fox smiled slightly and examined the trio. The human occupied the formation's center and wore a brown aviator jacket over navy pants. Fox was instantly aware of how the vixen and the ferret stood behind Waller, instinctively awaiting his actions.

_I can't believe they trust him already…_

_ I can't believe my own team trusted me in the beginning. _He considered nostalgically as images of his first fights against Andross and Venomian Army flickered through his wandering mind.

"What's with the leg brace?" Slippy asked, gesturing at the skeletal, dark-blue device that stretched tightly around Carson's right leg.

The ferret grinned sheepishly. "Um, it's a long story. And guys; Krystal, Fox, Slippy, Falco, I'd just like to say that it's an honor to meet you all."

Before Fox could reassure the kid, Falco bounded across the room faster than he ever had when Krystal made her legendary Cerinian-style steak. Fox's mouth watered as he imagined devouring the scrumptious meal.

"Well," Falco emphasized as he put a hand on the ferret. Fox shook his head and could only watch on in horror as Falco conveyed his own ego-filled version of the Star Fox adventures, all the way up to the assault on the Aparoid home world. In the sudden flurry of conversation, Fox saw that Falco's friend Hazel had set up near the back of the room with Krystal, talking about heaven knew what. Slippy had ended up watching a science program on his teleview, leaving Fox alone with the human Captain.

"That was some neat flying back there," Fox complimented for lack of anything better to say.

The human glanced at him and nodded. There was something warlike in the alien's far-off eyes; something fierce and majestic like a shining blue demon that could never be tamed. Yet those eyes and their distant gaze looked so familiar, Fox considered. Where had he seen those eyes before?

"You don't trust me," Waller said plainly as they both gazed at the others that filled the room with life. Fox and Waller stood silently, severely while their friends spoke and laughed and joked. There was no home for people like themselves, Fox knew. He was instantly reminded of something his father once said.

_"The most important part of being a hero is to be willing to carry the heaviest of burdens so the rest of us don't even have to know they exist."_

Fox knew that this new war wasn't just a fight for the survival of Corneria as previous wars had been. This war, for Fox, presented a fight not just for the survival of his friends or his race, but for the preservation of his peoples' livelihood; their ability to determine the outcome of their own lives.

_But what's more important?_ Fox wondered silently. _Freedom or survival?_

He did not have an answer, and the constant fatherly voice within him was uncharacteristically silent.

"I want to trust you, Waller, I really do," Fox spoke softly, shaking his head. "It's just after everything your country and race have done, this System and its people are the ones paying for your mistakes."

Waller nodded and sighed softly, as if he had been expecting that remark. "You're right. Lylat would've been better off if we'd never found it. But we're here now, and we have to make the most of it."

"And I thought _I_ was the one with a monopoly on optimism," Fox replied and gave the human a conciliatory smile.

Waller grinned. "Your parents must be really interesting."

With that Fox's face grew dark.

"They're gone, aren't they?" Waller's face radiated sympathy. There was something comforting in the way he didn't say something cliché or trite like the ubiquitous 'I'm sorry for your loss' or the decidedly melodramatic 'You have my sympathies'. The human seemed to simply _understand_.

Fox nodded quietly. "And I suspect it's the same for you."

Waller nodded and smiled sadly.

"It sucks," Waller cursed silently.

Fox glanced at the human, for the first time glimpsing someone who, despite obvious differences, might not have been so different after all.

"It does indeed," Fox responded and exhaled deeply.

And the pair fell silent.

* * *

The scene of black ash wafted into his dark, powerful nostrils. The cold whiteness of the snow ripped across his fur and clothes like a savage, intangible wraith.

General Kivuli Solarex glided his large primate hands over the escape pod that contained his latest prize. Within the glass, a strikingly beautiful female primate lay with her eyes shut and blood dripping from her temples. Despite the snow that blanketed the landscape, the impact had not been kind to his lovely Prize.

_Oh Andrea, my sweet Andrea, _he thought silently as a massive sneer spread across his scarred face. The ice crystals which had formed on the pod's glass casing glided across his fingertips, stinging him, though he paid the pain no mind. _We're going to have so much fun, you and I._

"General Solarex!" A masculine voice blared out over the roaring wind. Solarex turned and beheld a squat lizard in maximum thermal gear. _Damn reptiles_, he scoffed disapprovingly. _They think they're tough shit, but as soon as winter breaks out, they wither and die._

"What is it, Comrade?" his cold, deep voice projected blandly.

"We've just received word that our ruse was successful. They're coming."

"Good," the primate replied deeply. He ground his hands together as he prepared to issue his latest order.

"Move in and retrieve the Device, but keep broadcasting that distress signal." He smiled darkly. "When Star Fox attempts to land, kill them all. But leave the human _alive,_" he emphasized so the idiot would understand.

"Yessir," the lizard barked and salute smartly and disappeared into the whiteness that housed an entire legion of his best troops.

Alone once more, he glided his hand over the glass canopy that housed his Prize.

_Oh, Andrea. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have some killing to do, my sweet. Soon, baby, soon, I promise you will know what it means to slowly lose everything,_ he thought silently. A dark grin stretched across his face once more as he beheld the structure that awaited in the distant whiteness like a monolith that stood forever, immune to cosmic law.

Soon, the Fichina Weather Control Device would be his.

* * *

**Things are starting to get a little more complicated, so I figured I'd try to explain a few terms that are part of the story's universe, but not necessarily central to the story.**

_Earthspace: Most humans of this alternate mid-20th century universe have come to know of their collection of worlds as 'Earthspace', regardless of nation or region of the cosmos. Popular belief dictates that humanity's largest religious group (which gained popularity after the downfall of the Roman Empire), the Earthists, believe that mankind once arose from 'common earth'. Thus, under the influence of Earthist culture, many humans call their collective cosmos Earthspace, or alternatively, 'Earth'._**  
**

_The Malakhim: Malakhim is an ancient Hebrew word for 'Angel'. It was adopted after the survivors of the Fall of Rome settled on Neo Roma (later Neo). In a time when much of Earthspace was consumed by lawlessness, technological stagnation, and religious crusades, the Roman survivors saw themselves as the 'light' of the galaxy, assuming the responsibility of preserving Western culture and philosophy from as far back as the ancient Greek World-States and Egyptian Pyramid-Builders. However, they do so with or without the consent of 'lesser', younger nations. They also consider the Soviet Union to be a major threat to Earthspace.  
_

_Malakhim Water: Malakhim water, or, more popularly, 'Angel Water' is a transparent liquid extracted from the Ice Mountains that stretch across the northern hemisphere of the ice planet Neo. Upon ingestion, the liquid carries out seemingly miraculous healing capabilities that were previously unprecedented. Science, for all its horrors and marvels, has yet to discern what makes Angel Water heal living creatures as it does. The liquid's value was increased further when the Malakhim closed off foreign access to their home system, promising to annihilate any ships who were unlucky or unintelligent enough to wander near their world.  
_

_Soldier-legionnaires: The Malakhim dedicated themselves to the preservation of Western culture, but such preservation required measures of control. The Malakhim took it upon themselves to establish outposts throughout Earthspace, training and indoctrinating individuals from various nations into their military and later sending them into the armies and political offices of their respective nations, insuring the preservation of Roman and Western thought and ideals.  
_

**That's it for the terms for now, and at this point I'd like to thank everyone for reading and providing clear, honest feedback.  
**


	8. The Storm

**Disclaimer: This will be the first chapter featuring Rick Branson, an OC donated by DaLintyMan. Oh, and I don't own Star Fox.  
**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 8: The Storm**

"Argh!" A loud voice growled as the outdated C-47 Skytrain transport plane shuttered as it exited the stratosphere.

"We're coming up on Crete." Commander Rick Branson chimed in, "Damn, the Commies aren't liking our approach!" And why would they? He considered silently. It wasn't as if they were there to rescue the officious prick responsible for crushing the Greek uprising…

The cluttered transport ducked suddenly as thermokinetic warheads erupted off the port side in a collection of yellow-white flashes. The hull shuttered violently, threatening to come apart at the seams as they descended into the gray, war-torn atmosphere.

A low beep chirped out over the hail of shells erupting in the sky.

"We're almost there; Romanov's beacon is close," a female pilot with sharp Asiatic features barked over the deafening noise of the shells.

_We'd damn well better be!_ Commander Branson didn't say. The flickering lights barely illuminated his two Russian companions, who twisted visibly with the mention of the Romanov name. Depending on the Russian, that name could symbolize anything from heartless oppression to righteous leadership, which represented a unique dichotomy for Russians that most Westerners didn't understand. But Branson was not like most Westerners. Branson had grown up on the Australian desert colony Barrier on the far ends of the Pacific Cluster, close to the fledgling Japanese Empire, and was well-exposed to Eastern values and culture well before he became an adult.

Traditional Russian culture, much like Branson, symbolized something of a mix between Western and Eastern ideologies. Throughout its history, the once-great Russian Empire had struggled between acceptance of Western values and the recognizance of its own Eastern roots. But much of that changed with the advent of Leninism and later Stalinism which brought an even greater degree of oppression upon a nation that had never been free to begin with. And the bastardized result was the Soviet Union, and the obfuscating red shadow it cast over parts of Earthspace that the so-called "American heroes" had not even bothered to learn about.

And now he was tasked with bringing the haunted Russian figure into the Cornerian conflict, where both Westerners and Easterners alike had discovered (much to their chagrin) that they were not alone in the universe, and sought inject themselves like parasites into the veins of Cornerian politics and affairs.

Even worse, Branson knew, the damned Malakhim egged the Westerners on, driving them further towards whatever the fossilized Empire's goals might have been. What they didn't consider was perhaps the universe might actually end up on the cinder like those post-apocalyptic films in which Kinetic Bombs ripped through hyperspace and shattered planets across the cosmos.

_Morons. _He thought silently as the C-47 leveled out for vertical landing on the tropical Greek moon of Crete.

"We're right on top of the beacon!" The pilot added over the howl of the engines, "Starting vertical descent!"

Branson wished he didn't have to be in the middle of a remnant Communist rebellion – it put his valuable crew in particularly unacceptable risky situations. But the pay was good, and a man of the Romanov family was not to be disappointed.

_Well, no more than he had to be after losing his whole damned Empire._

He shook off the thought and began organizing his crew for the extraction mission, for time was fleeting and a grand payday was near.

Below, the last Tsar of the Russian Empire was waiting.

* * *

The white stars gleamed miraculously as they shot past the transparent observation window. Within the dim room, lit only by the light of the most distant, lonely stars, Gideon sat and clicked the power button his MiniRec.

A low, foreboding voice hummed from the miniature device's speakers, echoing throughout the silent room.

"Maybe…" the sad, lost voice wondered, "You'll think of me… when you are all alone."

In the background, a soft, wooden guitar was plucked quietly in the breezeless room as the voices continued.

"Maybe the one who is waiting for you… will prove untrue… Then what will you do?" Gideon clasped the whiskey shot on the dark table in front of him and sipped slightly, savoring the alcohol's sour taste as he watched the stars roll by. Gideon closed his eyes as a tear slowly escaped down the right side of his face.

"Maybe you'll think of me, wishing that I-"

A shuffling sound emanated from the back of the room.

_Shit!_

Quickly, Gideon snatched his metallic MiniRec and fumbled with the power button, drowning out the lost voice and instrumentations of the Ink Spots. He placed the device on the table and turned around, gazing at the intruder. Hazel stood at the entrance to the small, cluttered observation room. Her pretty face glowed warmly in the darkness. His heart instinctively beat faster.

_Calm down, Gideon. There's nothing going on between you and this… this vixen. You can be colleagues; friends, even. But in the end, she's a Cornerian and you're a human, and as soon as this whole charade is over you'll be kicking it with the high rollers in the City with all this fuckin' back pay Uncle Sam owes you. You'll forget all about her and she'll forget all about you._

"Um, sorry," Hazel spoke softly, "Is this a bad time?"

"N-not at all," Gideon stammered, and cast his left arm outward in a gesture of invitation.

_Oh, God, I hope she doesn't know that I was seriously brooding while watching the stars. She'll think I'm a melodramatic creep!  
_

The vixen calmly strutted into the room and took a seat at the table just in front of the glass window he's previously been peering out of. She glanced curiously at the shot glass and bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey that rested on the table.

Hazel hocked an eyebrow and gazed at him appraisingly.

"So, you couldn't sleep either, huh?" She asked.

"No, not really," he answered swiftly and shook his head. He grimaced in the dark as missiles of emotion and irrationality exploded underneath his hardened skin. He was somewhat thankful that the darkness of the room concealed at least some part of the sheer panic he was certain was showing on his face.

He sat down across from Hazel and was struck with horrifying certainty that he had left his MiniRec on the table. The metallic device gleamed bluishly in the dim starlight.

"What's this?" her warm, intelligent voice radiated over his cold skin. He glanced at her and saw her cradling his MiniRec curiously.

"_That_ was my only source of entertainment during the Depression," he answered more confidently than he thought he could. He stretched a hand out, gesturing for the device. Quietly, Hazel placed the MiniRec in his hand. Gideon savored the moment as the tips of their fingers brushed in the exchange, and as his face grew hot he was once again thankful for the darkness.

Hazel's features grew somber as she continued to speak.

"I-I heard about the Depression," Hazel sympathized and placed a paw on his left hand. He did not recoil. She gulped visibly at the touch and continued, "It must have been hell to live through that."

When Gideon had first met Hazel, he had immediately noticed her undeniable intelligence, but he never imagined that she, possibly the most talkative Cornerian he had ever met, might also be the most open-minded. It was comforting to have someone to talk to.

"For a while it was bad, _real_ bad. People looting in the streets, starving children killing each other for scraps of food. Some seriously messed up shit that I'll remember 'till the day I die." Gideon held up the device again. "This little thing here taught me how to play the saxophone – that's the instrument I was playing at the funeral service," he confirmed, and she nodded for him to continue. "When I was feeling at my worst, all I'd have to do is turn this little bad boy on and it helped me feel hope; hope that no matter how bad things were or how lonely I got, things would somehow be better."

Gideon cradled the device nostalgically, tracing the grime and scratches that had accumulated throughout the years.

"What about your parents?" Hazel asked softly, her warm amber eyes knowing the answer even as she asked.

"I -" he grimaced, the question stabbing him in the chest like a dull knife. "I never knew them. I was raised in an… an _orphanage_," he nearly spat, but no matter how strong the memories were, he couldn't muster the courage to tell the beautiful vixen before him about his early childhood. Some things were best left unsaid.

"But enough about me," he concluded, regaining his confidence. "Let's hear more about you, you know, let's put the spotlight on you." He cracked a smile.

Hazel smiled slightly and placed her right paw underneath her chin in a thinking pose.

"Oh, you'd probably think I'm Little Miss Boring with her ordinary teenage drama-filled childhood."

"Try me," he dared softly and smiled.

"Hmpf!" Hazel grunted. She shot him an unbelieving look and crossed her arms. "Maybe; if you promise not to laugh!"

Gideon threw her a protesting glare, but from the half-smiling way Hazel held her ground, he couldn't tell if she was intentionally being humorous or deflecting his questioning. He eased up on his prying, in case the latter were true.

"Alright, if I promise not to laugh you have to tell me one small thing about yourself."

"I don't have to do anything," the reddish vixen reminded him, "But if you promise to remain civil, maybe I'll be charitable."

Gideon let a smile spread across his face. "Fine. I solemnly swear on the lives of the Three Stooges that I will not grin, smile, or laugh so long as your Majesty graces me with a story."

Hazel giggled cutely. "That's more like it," she responded victoriously.

"_All pilots! Repeat all pilots, report to your assigned hangars for assistance in the Fichina defense effort!"_

A loud, mechanical voice blared obnoxiously over the dark silence of the room. Hazel sighed.

The voice continued, "_First Lieutenant Hazel Bartlett, Second Lieutenant Samuel Carson and_..._" _the voice paused as if grappling with some unpleasant fact or taste, _"Captain Gideon Waller, report to Shuttle Bay One."_

"To be continued?" Gideon asked as he gathered his things and made for the door.

"Definitely," Hazel said to herself, smiling as she followed him.

* * *

"Okay, you'd better explain to me why the hell you want us to go to that ice planet!"

Commander Rick Branson stood in front the pale, scrawny, sandy-blonde man he'd rescued barely an hour before. The various bruises and scars from the conflict were still plainly visible on the man's cold face. The man sneered and gazed challengingly into the Commander's eyes.

_Who the hell does this brat think he is?_

"I am paying you for that," the man said simply in a thin Russian accent. Suddenly, his voice grew heavy and dark. "And you'll do well to treat your betters with respect, _socoris_."

The sandy-haired man smirked and turned to leave. His footsteps resounded metallically throughout the old Japanese Q-Ship.

"That man is trouble, I can feel it." The female pilot announced from behind Branson. Her cool brown eyes surveyed the crew's newest member.

"He's a Malakhim, Akami – what did you expect?" Branson replied. His dark green hair, which had been subject to much ridicule over the years, glowed dully in the dimly lit make-shift hangar. Around him, various smaller craft sat silently, each in its own individual state of disrepair.

"But god damn it if we don't need the money," he mumbled silently.

He turned back to his pilot. "Set a course for Fichina in the Lylat System, maximum speed."

* * *

"Shouldn't Star Fox be joining us?" Carson asked the authoritative hare who stood before him. Carson might not have been one to complain, but he had to admit separating from the most successful mercenary squadron in the Lylat System had made him uneasy.

"Star Fox has other mission objectives to secure before they can help you can perform yours. They left the Horizon an hour ago, but they'll meet up with you on the planet." Peppy replied.

"Then what is it exactly you need me for..." he trailed off, awfully certain of something for the first time since…

_My father's work…_

"The Weather Control Center," Carson breathed silently. Of, course, it all made sense, he knew. But he had to be sure. "b-but surely you have reinforced security for the facility?"

Peppy's face grew dark. Suddenly, two pairs of footsteps resounded neatly off the polished Cornerian Navy corridor. Carson turned.

"Okay, we're here," Hazel Bartlett announced before she saw Peppy glaring at her. Quickly, she clapped her boots together and saluted, "Sir!"

Gideon Waller walked in alongside her, his face creasing slightly as if he were hiding a smirk. He carried a large green survival backpack that had various gismos sticking out of the top and sides.

"Colonel Hare," the human acknowledged and saluted as well. He glanced at the immobile Cornerian shuttles that stood unused and abandoned during the call to arms.

"I take it we're not part of the aerial defense effort?" Gideon ventured. His aquatic blue gaze met the solid earth-brown of Peppy's eyes.

"You're correct," Peppy allowed, and gestured toward the shuttles. "These are prototype XB-1 Anti-Pulse Shuttles; they feature technology lent from your _generous_ friends in Washington." Carson was pretty sure the word "generous" was political jargon for "We had to sell our souls to get this piece of crap. It didn't come with Cheerios, it wouldn't get me any girls, and they didn't give us a refund."

"Anti-pulse – these shuttles can withstand an EMP blast?" Carson blurted out, his sheer fascination with advanced technology loosening his tongue. Aside, the nearest silverish shuttle leaned toward the shuttle bay doors a like robotic hawk ready to plunge into cold depths of the sky.

"In theory," Peppy corrected, "Pulse weapons were banned after Great War One; too unethical and indefensible, but intelligence reports suggest that the Darcies are armed with one. Of course," he glanced at Gideon, "I don't have to tell you how dangerous a weapon like that can be in the hands of our enemies."

"Wait, just a sec," Hazel interrupted, her smile responding to something that was just too ridiculous to be true. "Darcies? We're calling them _Darcies_ now?"

"Yeah, DRC – Darcies, Pepper thought it had a nice ring to it," Peppy answered, smiling slightly. "Ahem," he straightened himself, remembering his duties. "We've received a distress call from the Fichina Military Research Facility on the northern continent of Alea, but unfortunately we can't establish a communications link with the base and we have no available manpower to spare for a rescue party. Your mission is to land at the station and provide whatever aid you can."

"But we're pilots. What are we supposed to do?" Carson asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Lieutenant Bartlett has medical expertise," he turned to face the reddish vixen, "You'll be in charge of insuring the health of everyone at the facility. Waller," he turned to face the human. "Your superiors have told me a great deal about your _exploits_ in the Badlands," he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You'll be in charge of ground security. And Carson…" he didn't need to finish. Carson nodded, accepting his fate.

"The shuttle's loaded up with supplies and navigational coordinates for the base. I won't be in constant contact with you, but I will make sure that there is always someone standing by should you need us to send more shuttles down for extraction," he added comfortingly. Peppy may have been a mercenary, but he also cared deeply for the soldiers under his command, Carson recognized.

"Good luck and good hunting," Peppy concluded, saluted sharply, and left to attend to his arduous duty as de facto commander of the Fichina Front.

"I call shotgun," Carson attempted. His short joke was met with the dull hum of the starship.

"Alright Curly, let's see what this thing can do." Gideon clapped the ferret on the shoulder and walked towards the gleaming silver shuttle.

Unsure of what "Curly" was supposed to represent in American society, as Carson's own fur was straight, the ferret fell in behind Gideon and Hazel, with an awfully confused look stretched across his face.

* * *

The craft descended gracefully into the atmosphere. Among many things, the Cornerians were great shipbuilders, Gideon recognized. Not a single rumble or issue of turbulence disturbed the expensive craft as it slipped toward its destination. But something was wrong, Gideon knew.

Since his first stint on a starship, he had come to expect and almost crave the constant rumbling and roaring of American spacecraft. The silence of this shuttle was deafening; unnatural like the white-polished rooms of his childhood. It felt as though he weren't moving at all; that he was stuck, chained to a steel bed back in the Orphanage. He could feel their eyes examining him, prying secrets from his mind as gleaming metal instruments scraped indiscriminately across his bare flash.

He paced back and forth in the shuttle's main compartment to shrug off his newfound anxiety. Across the room, Hazel and Carson sat at the controls.

"Are you okay, Skip?" Hazel's voice. He turned to face the vixen.

"I told you; call me Gideon," he growled unintentionally. He stopped pacing and cursed himself when he saw a sour look cross the vixen's face.

"Sorry, Gideon," she responded, her voice taking on a worried tone.

He took a second to scold himself further before he decided to speak.

"No, I'm sorry, Hazel," Gideon promised, "It's just…" he trailed off and gazed blankly at the floor. How could he ever expect her to understand? What had he been thinking when he decided to tell Hazel about his past? How could he have been so selfish?

Hazel rose from her chair and walked over to him. She placed a comforting hand on his arm. She drew closer to him. Gideon could feel the warmth radiating from her body, and at that moment he wanted to do nothing more than embrace her, cradle her, to tell her everything was going to be okay.

"I'm here for you, you know, if you need me," she purred quietly, so only Gideon could hear.

That was it. All thoughts were cast aside. Neither one spoke as Gideon inched closer to her, their bodies centimeters from touching. Hazel mimicked his movements, her warm amber eyes gazing deeply into his. She evoked such a mysterious and wonderful feeling with him whenever they were together. He didn't - he couldn't – understand what it was he was feeling at that moment. Somehow she made him feel more… real.

Did she feel the same way? He wondered silently as they stood within kissing distance of one another. She didn't show signs of retreating, nor did she show any signs of initiating anything. It was all up to him to find out where something like this could lead.

A sharp mechanical beeping prevented him from finding out.

"Uh, guys, you might wanna come up here," he heard Carson's voice chime in nervously over the shrill cry of the ship's alert systems.

Awkwardly, Gideon and Hazel broke off from one another, avoiding each other's gaze as they dashed toward Carson's position at the pilot's controls.

"What's wrong?" Hazel asked, leaning on the copilot's seat.

"I-I'm detecting a massive energy surge from the research base. Damn!" The ferret swore and his fingers became a barely visible blur over the pilot's controls.

Instantly, the lights within the main cabin dimmed, flickering hauntingly over the barely perceivable howl of the wind outside. The ship lurched, staggering Gideon. He grabbed hold of a control console, praying that whatever buttons he pushed didn't say SELF-DESTRUCT. His continued existence, however, proved that this fear was mute.

"They just hit us with a Pulse Blast!" Carson shouted as over the sudden turbulence. "Anti-Pulse systems are holding; but the emergency batteries overcompensated for the power drain."

"How bad?" Gideon asked, his voice low and serious.

"We're running on twenty-two percent power; just enough to keep us in the air…" He trailed off as the ship began to reassert its position in the sky.

"Who?" Hazel asked urgently, "Who the hell just hit us? We're nowhere near contested territory!"

"The Darcies," Carson answered as he continued his work at the controls. "They must have taken over the Base."

"I guess that explains why Command wasn't able to send a message to the facility," Hazel concluded. "The station's crew are probably all being held prisoner, or…" she didn't have to continue.

Gideon nodded. "There must be some way we can get the word through," he turned to the ferret. "Carson – can you patch us in to the Horizon?"

Carson tried a few buttons before sighing.

"It's no use, Sir. The Pulse knocked out our Comm Systems and I'm having trouble keeping us in the air as it is. I-" he stammered nervously, "I'm afraid we don't have enough power to get back into orbit. We might be able to reach the front lines at this point," he ventured, "but it's impossible to tell."

"Then we have no choice," Gideon commanded, his tone cool and calculating. He ignored the sudden worried twitches in his companions' expressions as the Soldier within him woke from the darkest recesses of his mind. "We proceed on-mission."

And the cabin grew silent.

"Uh, guys," Hazel's worried voice broke sudden quietness of the shuttle. "What the hell is that?"

"_That_ is the Constellation Leo," Carson chimed in full geek mode. He pointed up at the stars which shined brightly even through Fichina's daytime sky.

"No - _that_." She pointed directly in front of the shuttle.

Gideon leaned towards the glass viewport for a better look. Ahead of the shuttle, the normally thin, white, ethereal Fichina clouds were becoming darker. Gideon narrowed his eyes observantly as, by perhaps the tens or the hundreds, the clouds ahead of the XB-1 Shuttle conjoined into a dark mass of writhing black clouds, churning with malevolent energy.

"Carson!" Gideon barked as the clouds spread-ever near, static energy illuminating the horrid spectacle like fireworks cloaked in smoke. "What exactly were your scientists researching here?!"

"N-no time!" Carson stammered and stood from his chair. He quickly ran to the back of the main cabin and pulled opened a compartment pasted with thick blue lettering which read EMERGENCY: PARACHUTE GEAR. His voice suddenly grew alarmingly low and threatening as he strapped one of the slate white parachute packs on his back. "Each of you grab a parachute or you're dead."

Suddenly, a massive flash emanated from the front viewport. Immediately, a booming _CLAP!_ thundered throughout the cabin as a line of heat streaked into the shuttle's hull, breaching the far side of the main cabin. Gideon knew he only had mere seconds to grab onto something. His hands met a solid metal grip and he held on for dear life as the cabin depressurized and the hellishly cold outside air tore at his bare face. He caught a brief dark flash as Carson was sucked, accompanied by his parachute, into the white void of the Fichina skies.

Another flash darted before his eyes and, seemingly without his knowledge, his free right hand had wrapped around Hazel's left forearm. He gazed down at her, opening his mouth to speak but the words were torn from his lungs as the various chairs and equipment were from the main cabin of the once-advanced shuttle. She gazed into his eyes are her body flailed numbly in the howling maw of the ship. He noticed with a panic that Hazel had not had time to retrieve a parachute.

_Come on, Hazel! Give me your other hand! _Gideon screamed within himself. Then he remembered the Ejection Survival Pack that still clung to his back like a newborn child. He could save them both, he realized. No sooner had he tried to draw Hazel closer to him so they could open his parachute together, his strength failed him. He looked on in horror as the reddish vixen tumbled like a ragdoll into the atmosphere.

So, like any sane man trying to save an alien girl who evoked feelings within him that were themselves the farthest thing from sane, Gideon let go of the metal holding. Cold air tore at his flight suit and gnawed at his exposed eyes as he plunged face-first into the depths of Fichina's skies.

* * *

_Oh, Andrea, my beauty, if only you could see this__,_ General Solarex thought darkly as he observed the dissipating Cornerian-made storm above. _With that level of power in the palm of my hands, nothing in Lylat or even Earthspace will keep me from you, my sweet._

"Sir, weren't your orders for us to not kill the human?" The officious squat lizard chimed in annoyingly. "And where the hell is Star Fox?"

"Oh, the Malakhim is most definitely alive. And believe me," Solarex promised, smiling darkly. The lizard quickly backed away from the gargantuan primate's toothy, maniacal grin. "After our little demonstration, Star Fox will arrive shortly."

"Have you prepared Her, Comrade?" he asked offhand.

"We have, General," the lizard stammered as he backed further away.

"Good. Notify me when you have the human into custody," Solarex commanded and sauntered back into the Fichina Military Research Facility where his Prize awaited him, unwrapped, stripped, bare. His for the taking. Kivuli Solarex entered the prepared room and smiled.

It was time to have fun.

* * *

**Terms:**

_EMP/Pulse Weapons: Electromagnetic Pulse weapons were invented and deployed during the First Great War. The weapons would most often be used on entire fleets of vessels, stripping them of their power and, concurrently, their life support. This caused the brutal asphyxiation of tens of thousands of crewmen who were stationed throughout the Atlantic Star Cluster. These weapons were immediately considered barbaric and cruel by most authorities, and after the Treaty of Versailles was established in 1918, these weapons were permanently banned. This, however, has not stopped criminal enterprises and the Black Market from propagating and selling this technology._

_Kinetic Bomb: Also known as K-Bombs, Kinetic Bombs utilize previously unachievable levels of relativistic travel that allow antimatter warheads to travel at speeds so fast that, upon impact and detonation, a single Kinetic Bomb is capable of annihilating an entire continent. The resulting uplift of debris will block off all planetary access to the sun, destroying all foliage and, as a result, all life on the victim world. The United States and Soviet Union are the only two modern empires who are known to have stockpiles of K-Bombs, and, as such, the populations of both civilizations live under the constant worry that with each passing moment, the entirety of Earthspace could be destroyed._

_Socoris: Latin slang for "weakminded" or "idiot", usually a condescending Malakhim term for inhabitants of modern civilizations._

_Q-Ship: During the Second Great War, the various conflicting empires constructed combat vessels in the form of merchant ships to catch enemy fleets off guard. Although the Axis and Allied powers alike kept and maintained Q-Ships, they had no way of discerning them from common trading vessels, and since trade was of absolute necessity during the galaxy-wide conflict, the fleets of many nations fell victim to attacks by unrecognized Q-Ships._


	9. The Wind is Laughing

**A/N: Hey, I just wanted to thank everyone for reading. When I first started writing this story, I never imagined that people would like it, so thanks for sticking with me so far. I'll try not to disappoint.**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 9: The Wind is Laughing**

Andrea Jade Bowman huffed silently in the cool, darkened room. The breezeless air, haunting as it was majestic, crept gently down her spine. She shivered in the darkness of the room, the only place she ever remembered. The only thing she ever knew.

But she was not alone in that dark room. About that she was very much aware. Andrea could almost feel the horrid creature's breath cast a foul smog throughout the room. There was something familiar about the presence, its scent, its mannerisms, but she couldn't remember.

_God damn it! Why can't I remember?!_ Andrea screamed inside herself, where no one else could hear.

"You're so cute when you squirm," a deep, familiar voice bellowed over the silence. In the darkness, Andrea could just barely make out the hulking form of her intruder. It – no, _he_ Andrea was now certain, stood well over seven feet tall, easily dwarfing her own impressive six foot frame. The way the figure stood with supreme confidence told Andrea that the intruder could either seriously handle himself in a fight, or was the biggest idiot on Fichina for neglecting to tie her up.

_How do I know these things?_ She asked herself silently. _The room is cold, and I can remember… snow. _When was the last time she had ever seen it snow on any off the other worlds of Lylat? _Have I ever seen snow to begin with?_ An urgent part of her mind wondered seriously.

"If you're gonna kill me, get it over with. I don't have all day," Andrea taunted. She would be in no position to fight back if the distant figure had a gun. If the intruder fell for the taunt, moved closer and she discovered he were unarmed she might just have a chance. If not, well, she'd be dead, Andrea considered darkly. Deep down, Andrea understood that death might be preferable to whatever the intruder had in store for her.

A dark, chilling fit of salivating laughter echoed throughout the room. In spite of herself, Andrea felt another cool chill creep down her spine. There was something beyond menacing about that laugh, some distant memory or dream that haunted her, preyed upon her, demanded her blood for the sole sake of its own amusement. She tried once more to place the figure before her, but her mind would not allow it. The figure stood threateningly in the dark, rasping coldly with laughter.

A low metallic whine of a door interrupted her intruder's laughter. She heard small steps click over the sudden silence.

"WHAT IS IT?!" the gargantuan figure boomed suddenly, causing Andrea to jump slightly on the hard mattress.

"Um, um, um-"

"Spit it out!" The intruder demanded.

"Zogz wanted me to let you know that we've finished our analysis on the Device. Our scientists have determined i-it can be safely moved." The interrupter squeaked.

Andrea could just barely perceive the low rumble of the intruder's footsteps as he advanced on the unsuspecting newcomer. Sensing her chance, Andrea slowly crept from the bed and advanced behind the lumbering figure. She gasped as she beheld an over-seven foot tall silverback mountain gorilla. In the dark, Andrea could just barely perceive the various scars and pale markings that told of several battles fought throughout the years.

Those scars looked so familiar…

"Anything else?" the gorilla said darkly. Andrea instantly knew that the gorilla was bating his subordinate into giving him a reason to kill, but she didn't know how she knew that. Exactly who was this primate?

Andrea's luminous green eyes practically screamed from the blackness of the room as a sudden measure of pent-up energy began to coarse through her veins. An opportunity had surely arisen.

"N-no. Comrade Solarex, Sir." Taking the hint, the subordinate hastily excused himself from the room.

"Now where were we…" Solarex spoke softly, all trace of annoyance gone as he turned. His alien yellow-orange eyes fell upon her and widened with an almost imperceptible display of surprise.

"Hi, Andrea," Solarex said lightly and bared his dark, metallic teeth.

"Who the hell are you? And how do you know my name?" She hissed, prepared to pounce at a moment's notice.

The gorilla chuckled delicately and took a step forward. Andrea instinctively bared her teeth in a show of defiance. Andrea knew that aggressors usually retreated at a reactionary display of aggression, but Solarex seemed entirely unfazed. And it worried her.

"And here I thought the crash didn't damage you too much," Solarex replied almost dejectedly. "Pity."

"You can cram your pity up your ass." Andrea swore. "Now get out of my way."

"Not a chance," Solarex replied offhandedly and cracked his knuckles. "This is going to be fun."

* * *

The cold, lifeless air tore at every inch of his skin that lay exposed like open wounds as he plummeted through Fichina's atmosphere. Upon hastily letting go of his only grip on the shuttle which had ferried him and his allies to the icy wastelands of Fichina, he had made a crucial mistake. Sitting in the Ejection Survival Pack huddled on Gideon's back was his state-of-the-art reflective pilot's helmet that doubled as a filtration apparatus when EVA, or Extra-Vehicular Activity, was necessary.

Gideon swore inwardly as he tumbled uncontrollably through the atmosphere. He fumbled urgently at his pack, praying that the various built-in survival failsafes would prevent his gear from simply being blown off into air. But he had no other option. Without the protection provided by his helmet, Gideon knew it would be near-impossible for him to be able to find Hazel over the constant ripping sting of the wind.

As he tumbled towards the pale earth below, Gideon carefully unstrapped the left side of the pack so he could lean over and reach in. A sudden gust of wind sent him barreling faster toward the ground, shattering all preconceived notions of up and down. He ground his teeth as the wind slammed into his barely-protected body full-force.

"Stop it! Please!" he choked into the wind as the Child resurfaced. Immediately all the memories and feelings of the lightless Orphanage bled into reality, taunting him, howling at him, tormenting him from across the barriers of time. One by one, his torturers materialized in the wind, their cold dead eyes savoring the life and warmth they extracted from him like vampires hovering above a helpless man in the night, obfuscating the hopeful light of the stars he didn't even know existed.

He shut his eyes and reopened them. The figures had disappeared.

But the wind was still laughing.

"Fuck you!" Gideon howled back into the wind with every essence of cold hate that arose from the depths of his mutilated soul. His eyes narrowed and his gaze became cold, colder than whipping wind or sheering ice of Fichina, or even the lifeless vacuum of space that spread blackly across the heavens above.

He clenched his fists and drew out his emotions until they were gone, allowing himself to become the living machine that he had been trained to be; the machine that promised a reprieve from darkness and pain. Now, Gideon knew, there was only the mission.

Gideon robotically reached his left hand into the Ejection Survival Pack and withdrew his helmet, unflinching despite the howling, predatory laughter of the wind. He mechanically placed the helmet upon his head, savoring the empty protection of the pressurized helmet that shielded his bleeding face. Warm air entered his lungs as he re-shouldered the pack and leaned forward, descending ever-faster towards the gossamer world below, and his falling companion who cried out for his help from somewhere in-between

* * *

"Falco, look out!" Fox warned as an enemy fighter leveled itself within firing range of the avian's Arwing.

"I've gotcha, ya big bird," Fox heard Slippy croak loudly over the communications network before an Arwing fell upon the enemy ship, tearing it apart with a precise volley green energy blasts.

"Don't think this means I owya one," Falco retorted. Trying to save face as usual, Fox knew. His remark was met with chuckle throughout the group and Fox was ever-thankful with the sudden increase in morale. Falco might not have been as focused as Krystal or as intelligent as Slippy, or as professional as many hard-core Cornerian veterans from past wars, but Fox was beginning to wonder if that might actually have been more of an advantage to the team than even his unparalleled aptitude for fighter combat.

A sudden beep from his link to command communications networks across the planet brought him out of his silent reverie.

"Fox McCloud, this is Colonel Hare of the Horizon. Please respond." Fox narrowed his eyes and flipped the receiver. All the usual warmth of the hare's voice was gone.

_Something's wrong,_ Fox thought silently as he cleared his throat.

"Peppy? What's going on?" he replied.

Fox narrowed his emerald eyes further and let out an exhausted sigh as Peppy told him everything.

* * *

Gideon narrowed his eyes and surveyed the sprawling landscape before him. He hadn't predicted how difficult it would be to locate a red vixen falling into a sea of white.

"T-thermal v-v-v-vision," Gideon stammered, and instantly his pilot helmet's heads-up-display lit up the world below in a writhing sea of cold navy blue. He scanned the horizon once more, praying that he had leapt in time, that he wasn't too late.

A distant red signature caught his eye. In the distance, the glowing heat signature looked to be nothing more than a tumbling shard of rubble from the craft above, but it was the only thing in range. Gideon concentrated and nosed down toward the tumbling object, clapping his legs and arms center-mass, grimacing as the cold air tore open his flight suit and gnawed hungrily at his flesh.

As Gideon drew closer to the object, he could just barely ascertain a familiar red silhouette.

_Humanoid_, he thought silently and urged himself further downward, falling brilliantly like an angel cast out of a tortured heaven. He clenched his fists as the cold drew him further into submission, cutting him in every place it hurt. As he fell further, his eyes threatened to close.

_No, Gideon. Stay awake!_ He screamed silently. He bit his lower lip. The sudden jolt of proximal pain brought tears to his eyes, forcing them open. The taste of warm blood entered his mouth as the feeling in the rest of his body dwindled.

His eyes opened just in time to glimpse the beautiful vixen Hazel, who still flailed consciously despite the hellish chill of the Fichina atmosphere.

_Oh god, if only I had fur… _He wished as his body weakened and his vision blurred under the assailing cold.

Gideon felt the dull impact as he wrapped himself protectively around Hazel and pulled his survival pack's parachute ripcord that adorn the left strap of the bag.

Upon accomplishing his task, a slight smile played about his torn face as his eyes drifted shut for the final time.

_Wishes are for children._

* * *

The cold, lumbering form of Gideon Waller slammed into Hazel with so much force, she felt very fortunate that she still retained her consciousness. _Otherwise_, she remarked matter-of-factly despite the fact that she had just nearly plummeted to her death, _we might freeze out here._

The sudden deployment of the American's parachute almost shook her from him. Suddenly, his grip on her began to weaken and his helmeted head slumped into her shoulder, exposing his mutilated arms and back to her teary eyes.

_Oh my god, what happened to him up there?_

"Gideon!" She called to him as they swiftly but safely approached the snowy landscape below.

No response.

"Gideon, please!" She shouted at him over the dying wail of the wind. _Please don't be dead. I can't… I can't lose someone..._ She didn't say. Over the past few days, this alien – no, this man in her arms had opened up to her more than most men had in her past. Gideon trusted her with a part of himself, but when he had asked the same from her, she had rejected him, deflected his questioning. Now he had saved her and she had no idea whether or not he was still alive.

She shuddered slightly when his grip further slackened and she was forced to hold on to his limp, falling form, lest she herself plummet to the ground.

They impacted into the ground with a low _crunch_ as the snow beneath them yielded to their weight. Hazel looked on in horror as Gideon's body fell limply onto the snow and ice below.

She rushed up to him and turned him over.

"Gideon, wake up!" She shook him.

No response.

Hazel reached her paws to the sides of Gideon's dark, reflective helmet. She fumbled briefly with the device until her fingers met a button on the helmet's right side. She depressed the button and was once more met with the low _hiss_ of the human's helmet, though this time it evoked feelings much more desperate than those of her initial contact with Gideon, which had taken place little more than a week ago.

But the sheer briefness of the time they had to get to know each other paled in comparison to what might be in the future. And Hazel, as much a dreamer as many pilots who glided across the stars, did not wish for that future to perish as she gazed into his cold, wounded face. She gently caressed his neck and checked his pulse.

A very faint rhythmic heartbeat met her fingertips and a feeling of warm hope cascaded throughout her body.

The dark green parachute touched to the ground as the wind subsided, and Hazel's teary amber eyes were immediately drawn to Gideon's oversized survival bag.

_Malakhim water._

She positioned herself over the dark green bag and opened the lid. A cluttered mass of gadgetry, survival gear, and unrecognizable trinkets adorned the interior of the bag. She reached into the bag and her fingers met a cold, metallic surface. She withdrew her left paw and once more saw the strange device Gideon said had helped him during what the various Earthspace documentaries streaming across Lylatian space called the Great Depression. Her fingers caressed the nicks and grooves of the weathered device, lost in a momentary silence of thought, connected to the past of the man who had just saved her life.

Hazel blinked, chastising herself for wasting more time while Gideon was barely hanging on to life. She reached into the bag and felt the familiar smooth plastic of the bottle Gideon had given her the time he'd saved her from the burning wreckage of the Cornerian Air Defense Academy's emergency generator building.

She withdrew the same transparent bottle that housed the regenerative fluid described only as Malakhim water, Hazel considered wistfully. She unscrewed the lid and held the bottle to Gideon's crusted, bleeding lips.

As Hazel tipped the bottle, a drop of the transparent fluid fell upon his gnawed lips, wiping away the wound and invigorating the surrounding skin. She gasped at the healing properties of the new compound, something she thought she would never truly get used to seeing. She pushed the bottle further against his lips, forcing the fluid into his mouth.

Gideon gasped as the water entered his mouth and spread throughout his body. Hazel looked on in awe as the human's various scrapes and wounds closed up and subsided to nothing more than dull white marks on his wiry frame.

Quickly, Hazel withdrew the bottle and screwed the cap back on.

"Gideon! Did it work? Are you okay?" She pleaded with his immobile frame.

His eyes fluttered open. Those deep blue orbs gazed unendingly into hers. Hazel blushed slightly under his gaze.

"Nag, nag, nag," Gideon croaked and cracked a smile.

Hazel's heart skipped a beat. It was so interesting seeing the normally brooding human smiling. Because of her. She suppressed a grin.

Hazel reached down and offered him her right paw. He took it and she pulled him up. Suddenly, the parachute caught wind and vibrated slightly on the ground, forcing Gideon back down onto the snow.

Gideon grumbled lowly as she giggled uncontrollably. The human simply glared at her as if she had committed some ancient transgression or offended some distant god who happened to disapprove of laughing at people who fell on their ass. This of course only made her laugh harder.

Gideon frowned and reached across his back and depressed some mechanism or trigger with an audible _click_. Immediately, the survival pack detached itself from the parachute and Gideon rose again, shivering in the nippy air.

Hazel broke the sudden silence.

"Um, that Malakhim water sure did the trick, eh?" she said.

"Y-yeah," he stammered, obviously more affected by the cold than he was letting on. He scanned the surrounding landscape, his cool blue eyes shining across the world like bright blue lasers. It seemed as if every ounce of concentration went into whatever he wished it to.

_How the hell does he do that?_ She wondered silently as she glanced about the landscape, determined to help as much as she could.

"There," Gideon said softly and pointed towards a small opening in a nearby sheer incline.

"You have beauti – I – I mean you have good eyes," Hazel remarked sheepishly. When he didn't respond with the usual tease, Hazel looked at him, fully expecting him to glare at her or chide her for her unprofessionalism. Instead, the human simply looked toward the thin white world above and sighed, as if considering some far-off memory. She wanted to pry, to ask him what he was thinking about, and maybe even provide him with some comfort if he would accept it, but she decided against it. After all, he had just saved her life; the least she could do was give him some space.

Gideon shivered in his torn flight suit and looked towards the distant cave structure before he decided to speak.

"Listen, Hazel," he glanced back at her, his eyes soft but serious. Not commanding, not suggesting, but ordering nonetheless, Hazel knew. "It looks like it's gonna be dark soon. I don't know much about the night cycle of this planet, but if it's any worse than what we have now, we'll need to find shelter and get a fire started," he said.

"What about Carson? We can't just leave him out here!" Hazel protested. The ferret techie had been pulled by the wind from their fallen shuttle mere moments before she herself fell from the shuttle. But the ferret had had time to strap a parachute to his back, if there was even the slightest chance her new friend could be alive, she wasn't going to give up on him.

"Someone say my name?" A high, unusually boisterous voice startled Hazel. She turned to gaze upon the beige ferret Carson, who had a slight smile on his face.

* * *

Andrea ducked swiftly to avoid the silverback mountain gorilla's killing blow. Solarex's wide fist smashed into the metal frame of the nearby wall, denting the seemingly indestructible material.

Andrea quickly slammed her foot into Solarex's barely-clothed right knee. She heard a low, sickening _crunch_ as something in the middle of the primate's leg broke.

The hulking mass of muscles clutched his knee and cringed, though he did not scream.

"Now, now, Andrea, let's play nice," Solarex taunted and smiled fiendishly.

Andrea answered by driving a fist into Solarex's face. The gorilla recoiled and grabbed Andrea's retreating arm, dragging her towards him. Solarex lifted another hairy arm and wrapped it around Andrea's neck, holding her out in front of him.

"I'll be the last thing you'll ever see," he growled and clenched his hand around Andrea's throat. His hot, noxious breath seared the insides of Andrea's simian nostrils. She was surprised that she could still breathe despite the immense pressure placed upon her neck.

"Oh, you won't suffocate," Solarex indicated, seeming to sense her false moment of relief. "It's a common misconception of strangulation. Normally, it's nearly impossible to crush the windpipe through choking alone; additional force is needed. But strangling _does_ cut off your carotid artery, depriving your brain of oxygen." He squeezed harder and chuckled chillingly. "Slowly, your vision will fade until all you see is black, and when it's all over and you spit your last breath, there will only be… me."

_Never!_

Andrea kneed Solarex in the… solar plexus. _Heh. What are the odds?_ Andrea thought to herself as the gargantuan gorilla dropped her onto the floor. She quickly recuperated and stood back up. Solarex lay breathless on the floor, clutching the sensitive patch of chest Andrea had impacted.

Andrea moved unhindered to the entrance to the dark metallic room which symbolized all she remembered and everything she knew. She stood hesitantly on the threshold, eyeing the one obstacle between her and the unknown world beyond. What lay beyond the door? Was there nothing? Was this room everything? But if that were true, then where did she come from? Surely not the room, right?

_Shut. Up. Andrea._ She said to herself as she steeled herself for what lay ahead.

Her fist closed around the door handle and turned.

* * *

"So what are these?" Carson asked, gesturing toward the foil-wrapped objects that sat near their collection of firewood. Dark rock and earth coated the cave walls around them. Outside, the sun was just beginning to set, casting warm magenta hues across the hostile sky. From the cave, Fichina looked beautiful, Gideon realized. It was a conception he might have believed had he not nearly perished from the oppressive wind and cold that seemed common across Lylat's token ice planet.

"Burgers," Gideon said tastefully and licked his lips. There might not have been many things that Gideon needed for his own survival, but the notion of crash-landing on a strange backwater world without New York's finest bacon cheeseburgers would have very likely driven him insane.

"You mean like _cheeseburgers_?" Carson replied his voice high and excited.

"Mhm, a real man's meal," Gideon indicated and smiled. All traces of the Soldier within lay dormant as he anticipated the meal ahead.

"Hey, don't you guys realize how unhealthy that crap is?" Hazel asked from the mouth of the small cave the group had set up camp within.

"Hazel, don't be a killjoy," Carson said. "It's soul food. That's actually a technical term for feel-good food in the Cornerian Association of Food Awareness."

"You Cornerians know where it's at," Gideon replied as his stomach growled.

"Men," Hazel mused jokingly and turned her back to them.

Gideon and Carson chuckled and gave each other a high-five.

Hazel turned. "I heard _that_!" She said venomously as her normally peaceful amber eyes suddenly glowed as if prepared for war.

"Um, heard what?" Gideon asked, his confidence buried under his anticipation for a bacon cheeseburger. He averted her luminous eyes nervously. Instead, his eyes wandered over her shapely vixen anatomy, barely hidden from him by the thin material layer of her flight suit. He gulped audible and glanced back at Hazel's face, hoping she didn't see him peeking.

"That's what I thought," Hazel concluded and smiled knowingly at Gideon. Had she caught him?

_I am so screwed._ He thought silently as blood rushed to his cheeks.

"S-so how did you find us, Carson?" Gideon asked, changing the subject. "We lost track of you after that storm hit us."

"Yeah, that was a pretty rough patch," Carson agreed. "I landed a few kilometers south of here, but I was lucky enough to see you intercept Lieutenant Bartlett in time to make a safe landing. After that, it was a simple matter of walking in the right direction until I found you." He gazed longingly into the pile of firewood and massaged his arms. "D-do you guys have an instalight or something?"

"Better," Gideon said and smiled. He reached into his bag and withdrew his favorite weapon.

"A sword?" Carson asked. "I thought Americans used more advanced weapons?"

"We do, but this weapon isn't American," Gideon replied proudly and thumbed a small button on the hilt of the nearly-meter-long blade. Instantly, the gleaming bronze blade glowed a dull hue of red, brightening the darkened cave. He lent the tip of the blade into the firewood they had gathered from a nearby mass of fallen trees. Upon contact, the wood was immediately set ablaze. A warm, comforting aura spread across the interior of the cave.

Hazel knelt down and placed her paws near the flame. She glanced at Gideon's sword, which still glowed hauntingly red.

"Is that some sort of laser sword?" She asked.

"Um, lasers are actually beams of focused ligh-" Carson stopped when Hazel glared at him.

Gideon smiled slightly before held the blade in front of him. The dark red glow lit up his pale face.

"Before the Roman Empire fell, people traveled across the galaxy through wormholes; though today people use hyper drives because they allow for specific destinations," Gideon amended. Hazel and Carson stared at him, obviously ready for him to continue.

He nodded. "Well, one day, the Romans discovered a wormhole that lead them to a solar system they had never seen before. The Centurion in charge of the expedition team discovered an unfamiliar metal that, well, lead to this _calogladius_." he gestured to his glowing sword.

"Calogladius?" Hazel mused.

"Heatsword," Gideon translated.

"B-but what about that world? Surly it must be in the Lylat Archives, or something?" Carson wondered aloud.

"That's the strange thing," Gideon replied and frowned. "Soon after the Romans extracted a boatload of the mineral, the wormhole just closed shut, and no one was ever able to travel to that solar system again."

"Well, did anyone ever figure out where it was?" Hazel asked.

"The Martian Galaxy," Gideon said simply, and a cold chill radiated throughout the cavern. "Most people don't believe the story, especially since hyperspace travel across the Void is suicide. But the Malakhim still keep records." He glanced at his companions, who both had incredulous looks on their faces.

_I've said too much_, he realized silently and lowered his gaze.

"But that doesn't matter now," he said unconvincingly as he deactivated his sword and placed the burgers near the fire, hoping the proximal heat would be enough to catalyze the Formation Enzymes in the food. "It's too cold out for us to safely travel to the Research Base, so we'll have to stay the night."

"Yeah," Hazel agreed, glancing at Gideon's tattered flight suit. "Don't you have a spare change of clothes in that bag?"

"I do, but I was saving it in case you Cornerians chickened out."

"Hey!" Carson protested.

Hazel smiled warmly. "Don't be stupid, Gideon. Humans have no fur; you need it more than we do."

"Alright, fine," Gideon relented and reached into the bag, withdrawing a bundle of warm tactical clothing. He stood. "Now, if you'll kindly avert your gaze…"

"Yeah, as if we want to look at your ugly human hide," Carson teased and walked toward the cave entrance.

Hazel took a second glance at Gideon. He smiled at her. She smiled back and turned to leave. Suddenly she turned again to face him.

"How did you become a Malakhim if you grew up in an orphanage?" She asked.

_Where did that come from? My explanation must have disturbed her more than I thought._

"I ran away from the Orphanage," Gideon said simply and sighed.

Hazel gazed at him, scrutinizing his face.

"Why?" She wondered.

"It's a long story."


	10. Sic Vis Pacem

**Badlander**

**Chapter 10: Sic Vis Pacem…**

"I told you to capture him alive. Are you too simple an organism to follow even this instruction?" The masked figure stood once more near the lifeless window, which gave way to the great beyond.

_More like_ _beyond suffering_, Shadowed thought morosely.

"W-we haven't killed him, My Lord. Our forces are hunting the American on the surface of the planet as we speak."

Masked turned to behold the Shadowed figure. The cold, metallic face seemed to scream from the darkest depths of space. For a moment, Shadowed doubted if such an evil figure could even be human.

_Well, Hitler was human. So was Josef Mengele, _he remarked silently, remembering the intelligence reports about the mass graves of the Nazi Necropolises, and the human purification plants on the Mengele Genocamps. Not so different, he recalled, from the practices of his former master Andross.

_I suppose all species produce monsters,_ Shadowed lamented silently. And sometimes, in order to reach certain goals, deals had to be struck, usually with the type of people no sane individual would invite into his or her own home.

"See to it that he remains alive, Chairman, and remind that upstart Kivuli Solarex to adhere to the plan. After that he may settle his own vendettas," the masked figure's cool, metallic voice rasped once more against Shadowed's eardrums.

"Prepare your fleet for deployment." The Masked figure ordered coldly.

Shadowed cringed slightly, but managed to hold himself in check.

"Yes, My Lord," he promised, fully aware of the grim ramifications of failure. "It will be done."

* * *

The cool air hissed delicately through Andrea's fingers. Under the stoic, lumbering evergreen tree she slept. Her injuries sustained from escaping the Gray Room slowly faded into the abyssal plane that souls traveled to when they wished to dream, or had been ensnared by some dark nightmare.

But this did not feel like a dream, she knew as her jade green eyes surveyed the darkness, although she could only clearly recall that one day in the entirety of her life. Surely there had been more to begin with, right? She did not know, and as her soul descended further and further from consciousness, she was more certain that the black abyss that surrounded her was a memory. Of what, she did not know.

"Mommy?" a young, innocent voice rang out in the darkness.

"Hello?" she stood. The clouds of her subconscious mind made her feel like she was flying. Maybe she was flying, she decided; flying further and further from the truth her mind searched for so desperately.

"Mommy, why did you leave me?"

A name. A name she had grown to protect. But why?

A name formed on her tongue, but it escaped her like some fleeting wind tugging at her clothes, gently guiding her in the right direction, only to die as assuredly as anything else when she was mere inches from her goal.

"Where are you?" she screamed into her dream, and suddenly the walls closed in, noticing and punishing her for her indiscretion. Uncertainty surrounded her like a thick black fog that forced its way into her lungs, choking her from within. And then she knew that dreams could kill.

"Mom, you have to wake up." The innocent voice suddenly became frightened.

"Who-" she choked. That was the question. The forbidden question. The black smog twisted within her chest, rupturing her heart. She collapsed onto the immateriality of her dream. Her nightmare. Her memory. All one and the same. Because of him.

A cold whisper sung from far away in the fog.

"Mommy, you have to wake up."

* * *

"We'll go get them, Peppy. And bring them back alive; I promise," the hopeful, much-loved voice concluded over the communications system of the Cornerian Fleet Ship Horizon.

"I know you will," Peppy answered. He moved closer to the microphone so no one else in the immediate vicinity would hear. "Be careful, son." The commlink clicked off. Peppy settled into his seat and sighed.

_What a day, eh James?_ He thought silently, remembering his best friend and the last promise he ever made to him. _I know I promised you I'd look out for Fox, but Pepper, the old fart, says he needs me here. Buddy, just say the word and I'll give up the rank, promotion, everything, just so I can fly alongside him again, and fulfill my promise to you._

Only silence greeted Peppy as he stared out once more at the tumultuous cold planet below, and the stars that lingered like angels above. He hoped that one of those angels would be watching Fox and his team today.

"He's like a son to me," Peppy mumbled aloud as tears threatened to break through his eyes.

"Did you say something, Sir?" A husky feminine voice from behind startled him.

Peppy turned and beheld a familiar grayish feline whose sapphire eyes sparkled mischievously.

"Katt Munroe, what are you doing here?" Peppy exclaimed, more than surprised that the crime-dabbling feline would risk appearing on a military starship.

"Oh, now that's no way to say hi to an old friend," Katt purred as she sauntered over to where Peppy sat.

"You haven't answered my question," Peppy said simply, and on this rare occasion he was glad to be old. Age afforded him wisdom that almost made up for his lack of energy and mobility.

"Well, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd stop by, have a chat, maybe steal a few things. Not necessarily in that order."

"There isn't anything here worth stealing. All the ships are-" he stopped, remembering.

"P-51 Mustang. American. Four plasma casters, two missile bays. Top speed: short-jump hyperspace. I was thinking about taking one of those Anti-Pulse shuttles, but from what I hear they're pieces of flying crap."

Katt grinned as Peppy widened his eyes. "Sound about right?"

Peppy was taken aback by the feline's unparalleled ability to research a job before implementing it. Katt's flirty attitude and good looks were just a front; a convenient disguise for a brilliant criminal mind.

The hare narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't be here if you were planning on stealing something," he said.

"Nope," she agreed sweetly and continued. "Not unless I planned on taking over the conn and stealing this whole frigate and nab the whole bunch. Which I could totally do, by the way," she promised and winked at him.

Peppy believed her, and it showed on his aging face.

"Naw, relax Peps," Katt amended and held her hands out in a conciliatory gesture of peace. "If I were here to steal something, it'd have been stolen already."

"So why are you here, then?" Peppy wondered, truly lost. Then he knew. "Falco."

Now it was Katt's turn to widen her eyes. She looked like she was about ready to fire off an incendiary remark when she lowered her gaze and sighed. Katt nodded and shot him another look that said: _It's in your best interest to keep that tidbit of information to yourself_.

Peppy nodded. He got the message. Additional garble from the communications equipment prevented Peppy from prying further.

He turned, clicked the receiver button on the console in front of him and spoke.

"Colonel Hare, CFS Horizon," he indicated. He heard a mild clatter as Katt walked up next to him, her face anxious to hear a message that might perhaps indicate the death of a certain Star Fox pilot.

Peppy grumbled slightly as he awaited a response.

"Colonel!" the voice blared out anxiously. "Unknown ship dropping out of hyperspace off the port bow. Sir, it looks like they're powering weapons!"

Peppy stood rigidly. "All hands, battle stations!" he barked. "Shields up."

And everything was silent, save for the dull hum of the ship's energy allocators as the Horizon's crew prepared for war. He glanced nervously at the instruments in front of him, checking for even the smallest increment of change.

"Sir!" the voice continued. "They - they're not firing."

"Give me a status report," Peppy requested. He knew better than to get impatient with the individuals who held vital information.

There was a long pause. Katt hovered nearby, her face fully alert.

"Sir, the unknown ship is requesting communications."

"Patch 'em through," Peppy ordered. Immediately, the glass canopy that sat in the front of the command room lit up in the form of a rectangular patch of static. Gradually, the picture materialized into a portrait of two humans. One had strange, dark-green hair and mysteriously colored irises. The other was shorter, thinner, had light blond hair, but he gave off an aura of absolute authority that seemed to defy age.

It was the blonde man who spoke first, much, apparently, to the chagrin of the taller, older human. The green-haired human scowled slightly as the younger man spoke.

"Ah, Colonel Peppy," the human spoke in a strange, exotic accent. "I didn't think Cornerian Command would be so bold as to stick you in a frigate."

"My posting is irrelevant," Peppy clarified while Katt covered her mouth to suppress a grin. "Who are you and what do you want? And how do you justify your violation of sovereign Cornerian space in a time of war?"

"Alright, down to business. I like that," the man stated with a sneer that made Peppy want to fire off an energy cannon just to wipe the smirk off his face. "My name is Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov, and I come here seeking an American Captain by the name of Gideon Waller."

"Romanov," Katt said quietly. "You mean _the _Romanov? The last Tsar?"

"Ah, my beauty. Your intelligence becomes you," Romanov purred through the screen. He smiled charmingly. "I beg your acquaintance, my lady."

Katt blushed slightly and was about to speak when the strange, green-haired man elbowed the younger man whispered something into his ear.

The younger man glanced back at him and shook his head.

"Very well, Branson," he turned to face, "Colonel Hare – as I have said – I have come here in search of Gideon Waller. Is he on Fichina?"

Peppy clenched his fists. Who was this man, this "Tsar"? And how did he know about the American Captain? Perhaps more importantly, what did he want with him?

"I am not at liberty to discuss that information," Peppy stated frankly and narrowed his eyes. "I highly recommend that you leave this system immediately."

"You'd turn away help during this arduous time?" Romanov wondered and gazed at Peppy pityingly.

"Help is not as important as knowing who to trust," Peppy indicated and moved closer to the screen. He definitely knew he should not trust this human, but if he were here to cause trouble, then why would he waste time negotiating? It might not have changed how Peppy felt about the man, but at least it was something to consider.

"Can I trust you?" the hare wondered aloud.

"Anyone who claims he can be trusted is most definitely a crook," the blonde man replied and smiled sadly. Peppy had good sense that the figure before him was no stranger to lying, but something about the smile seemed genuine.

The aging hare chuckled.

"So, it seems we have a dilemma, Mr. Romanov," Peppy put forth.

The blonde man nodded with apparent sincerity.

"It does indeed, Mr. Hare."

* * *

"What do you mean 'the sword is useless'? That thing set freaking wood on fire just by touching it," Hazel heard Carson ask as Gideon fumbled through his supplies.

Outside the cave the sun was barely rising on the cold horizon, shining like a beacon in the distance, illuminating a chilling sea of white. Amongst the snow and ice, numerous lumbering evergreen trees stood defiantly like frost-covered giants.

Hazel stole a glance at Gideon, drawn to the way his firm muscles worked as he organized his equipment. Gideon noticed her gaze and looked up. She looked away. The night before, she had asked him why on Corneria he had left the orphanage which had raised him in exchange for a violent life on the streets during one of the most arduous economic downturns in Cornerian and human history.

_It's a long story,_ he had said, his cold eyes rebuffing her gaze as he asked her to leave. She felt as if her efforts to get closer to him had suddenly come crashing down upon her.

"Well, for one I'm not exactly the best swordfighter," Gideon answered, drawing Hazel back into reality. She glanced back at him as he and Carson began to engage in their newfound banter.

"Two; the bad guys have guns, so unless I get within spitting distance of them, I'm pretty much screwed," he said simply as he sheathed his sword in favor of his automatic weapon. He retrieved a small pistol from his bag and handed it to Carson.

"This is a-"

"Colt M1911 standard semi-automatic pistol," Carson interrupted and expertly withdrew the cold, metallic magazine. ".45 ACP armor-piercing explosive rounds. Not bad."

"You know your weapons," Gideon complimented and handed him two spare magazines. Carson grinned sheepishly as he tucked the sidearm and magazines into his waist.

"Dad was a scientist, mom was a soldier," he said proudly. "Each tried to steer me in the opposite direction. Dad would be like, 'Here, son, delicious quantum mechanics. Eat!'" he mimicked a deep, masculine voice. "And Mom would be like, 'Oh, Sammy, if only you knew how much more fun blaster pistols are,'" he mimicked a sweet, innocent voice.

A sad expression passed momentarily on Gideon's face and Hazel's heart skipped a beat.

_He's thinking about the parents he never had_, she thought, and lamented silently that there was no way he would ever let her get close enough to help.

The expression faded within seconds, however, and was replaced with a warm, gentle smile.

"They sound like good people," he said softly. "Are they doing alright?"

Carson's youthful face suddenly grewf, dark.

"Mom died when the Aparoids attacked Corneria City a couple years back," he admitted and sighed. "After that, Dad just threw himself into his work. When I joined the military, he figured it was time to move on so he left for the new science programs the military was developing on Fichina."

"He's at the Research Base, isn't he? That's why Peppy wanted you on this mission." Hazel wondered aloud and gazed at the dying embers of the fire. A prickly sensation slid over her fur as Gideon and Carson gazed at her.

Carson nodded shortly.

"Yeah, well, if it's alright with you guys, I'd rather not talk more about this."

"I gotcha kiddo," Hazel promised, "Personal lives are personal."

"T-thanks, Lieutenant Bartlett."

"You can call me Hazel if you want," she said warmly. She was happy when the ferret let a small smile play about his face.

"Thanks, Hazel."

Hazel nodded and turned to Gideon, who smiled approvingly and tossed her a spare pistol identical to the one he gave Carson. She quizzically examined the dark, metallic harbinger of death that rested in her hands and glanced at the larger one Gideon was now cradling in his arms.

Hazel walked over to the human. Bright electricity pulsed through her veins.

"Hey, why do I get the girl gun?" she teased him, and flirty smile crossing her face.

He glanced at her and smirked, noticing her smile.

"Hm, maybe it's because you're – I don't know – a girl?" He teased and smirked at her arrogantly.

She simply glared at him and stepped forward. How dare he?

"Oh, you think you're funny," she bit back as they stepped closer to one another.

"I _am_ funny."

"Yeah? How come I'm not laughing?" she challenged.

"You're laughing on the inside," he said and smirked warmly and took another step forward, his hands brushing against hers, sending a cascade of emotions barreling throughout Hazel's body.

She stepped forward again. Now their arms were touching and their chests were inches apart. Hazel could feel his hands moving behind her back. She had to stop this, she knew, but why couldn't she?

"Oh yeah-"

"Uh, guys," Hazel turned and saw Carson grinning at her sheepishly. "Get a room."

Hazel turned in a panic and realized that her lips were almost touching Gideon's. If he only leaned down a little more… _What the hell am I thinking?_ She pushed herself away from him. She was supposed to be mad at him, not making smoochy kissy faces like some hapless high school girl.

Gideon's cheeks reddened as he recoiled.

He shook his head and scooped up his Thompson submachine gun. Hazel almost gasped at the sudden change in his face as his eyes grew cold.

"Um, we'd better get moving," Gideon said. He shifted uncomfortably in his new tactical gear. "It's daybreak and we're going to need all the sunlight we can get."

Hazel nodded, burying her feelings from their unexpected exchange. It was time to get serious. She leveled the human sidearm in front of her and tested the iron sighss approvingly.

"We'll I'm ready," Carson remarked. "Before I landed, I spotted a large complex due north. It might be a good place to check out."

Gideon nodded and Hazel saw him turn his head face her.

"Alright John Wayne," He gestured at the way she was holding the Colt pistol. "Let's follow the Yellow Brick Road."

Hazel looked at him quizzically as he cracked a knowing smile and stepped into the cold.

* * *

Commander Rick Branson stood patiently as the self-proclaimed leader of the extinct Russian Empire made negotiations with one Colonel Peppy Hare (which was ironic because the colonel was, for lack of a better word, a hare). Despite the unfortunate last name, Peppy was, from what he could tell, atypical of most military commanders, who routinely spouted selfish ideological idiocy and had a nasty habit of getting their subordinates killed. The colonel seemed used to commanding men and taking charge of situations, a talent that was seldom honed during formal schooling or military education. No, Branson recognized, Colonel Hare was a natural commander, pure and simple.

"You may maintain your current orbit until Cornerian Command states otherwise," Peppy stated, "but for your own safety, you are not to approach Fichina or any other Lylatian world."

_For our own safety, huh? Nice to see the Cornerian military higher-ups are just as lousy bullshitters as the politicians back home._ He wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. Before he became a mercenary, his life as an Australian resistance fighter plotting against the cunning, zealous Japanese Imperials had taught him to be very sparing with his words.

"You misunderstand, Colonel Hare," Romanov corrected, "I never expressed interest in touching down on any of your war-torn worlds. Your White Army might mistake me for a Red in all the confusion," he clarified. "I only wish to know of Captain Waller's whereabouts."

The hare cocked an eyebrow._ Or whatever passes for eyebrows on Corneria…_ "And then what? I highly doubt you'll just be off on your merry way." Behind the Hare, the strange grey feline drew her hand up to her chin in a thinking pose.

"So you _do_ know here he is," the blond man emphasized.

Peppy frowned and glanced back at the greyish feline who had developed a mischievous giggle.

A dull beep from further back the in the command room happily distracted Branson from the so-called negotiations. He politely excused himself and walked up the deck, his dark boots clanking sharply against the cold, gridded metal of the floor.

"Give me a status report, Hino." he requested the jury-rigged Japanese operations computer.

A flurry of background patriotic music answered his query.

"Ah, Commander Branson!" Hino, the ship's artificial intelligence, answered. "I have detected unidentified- _HAIL THE EMPEROR! – _several ships incoming on a stealth trajectory."

Branson staggered as the ship's hull rumbled.

"What the hell was that?" Branson heard the blond man's voice ring, although Branson already knew the answer.

"Energy charge detonated on the dorsal hull," the computer blared out in a thick Japanese accent.

Branson gritted his teeth. From the reports he received periodically from people who owed him favors, the DRC didn't seem to have a large supply of ships, so why would they risk attacking two ships that weren't even participating in the conflict below? Was it even the DRC who was attacking? Another hull-rumbling detonation brought him out of his silent reverie.

"Hino, sound the alarm; get everyone ready!" he barked at the computer, ignoring the imperialist rants that subsequently echoed throughout the ship as the artificial intelligence summoned his crew to their stations. He moved to his operations chair that sat in the middle of the bridge. Dull red lighting cascaded over the various consoles and instruments. If there hadn't been a view screen at the front of the room, Branson would have easily mistaken his cluttered, red, metallic surroundings for dark depths of hell.

Romanov glided up to him and sat in an operations station to the left, apparently familiar with the workings of a starship. His dark, accepting frown made him look older than he previously appeared to be. Branson had to remind himself that the man before him had more than likely seen most of his entire family butchered in the events following the October Revolution.

Branson clenched his fists as his crew haphazardly fumbled onto the bridge, taking their respective consoles and bringing the Hinomaru's weapons to bear.

It was time for payback.

* * *

"Slippy, are you sure the Pulse failsafes will hold in place?" Fox asked his amphibious teammate. Slippy's Arwing dipped down and fell in next to his own. Below, the flat plane of snow and ice narrowed into a large valley that descended further into a canyon. In the previous years, Lylat's only ice planet had become far easier to chart and explore with the advent of weather-controlling technology. He could only imagine what would happen to the newly growing ecosystems on the planet if the planetary weather control systems were removed.

"Good question!" he replied honestly. "The Americans use it to reinforce the hulls of their starships and provide back-up power in case someone decided to violate the Treaty of Versailles and hit them with an EMP. Even the US Navy guys had a hard time getting the systems to work most of the time."

"Treaty of Versailles?" Falco wondered.

"That's what ended the First Great War, Falco," Krystal said softly. "But it only pushed Germany down the road to electing Hitler."

"Those guys elected him?!" Falco exclaimed. "Why?"

"Sometimes, when people are desperate, they'll turn anywhere for help," Krystal answered. "Even if that help ends up doing horrible things to keep its power."

"Heh, sound like someone we know?" Falco asked.

"Yeah," Fox answered. How could he ever forget about that ape Andross, who, driven mad by his desire to improve Lylat, had murdered his father and started a conquest of domination that got millions of people killed? "Yeah, I guess some things carry across species well enough."

"Fox, are you okay?" Krystal asked, concern rampant in her voice.

"I'm alright, Krystal," he said, and wished more than anything that Lylat no longer needed him, so he could just worry about seeing her smile. "It's just…"

"I know," Krystal said softly. Fox nodded gratefully, happy to have Krystal with him as he dove into the fray. Sometimes, it seemed like she understood Fox more than he understood himself. _What would I do without her?_

A sudden beep from his ship combat sensors brought him from his distant reverie.

"Fox, are you getting this?" Slippy asked.

"Yeah. What do you make of it, Slip?" Fox wondered.

"Hang on," Slippy's high-pitched voice chirped loudly over the communications link. "Oh, dangit! E-enemy missiles incoming! Fox; they're all around us!"

Immediately, Fox checked his Aerial Proximity Scanner. The screen was choked in a threatening sea of red.

"Evasive maneuvers!" He spoke just when a glowing orange-yellow projectile streaked past his Arwing and slammed into the ground below.

* * *

Gideon Waller walked softly on the open slate of snow that stretched infinitely across the horizon. A sudden whistle of the wind brought his attention to the snow that crunched under his boots. Shouldering his Thompson, Gideon crouched down and creased his fingers into the snow. He lifted the snow near his face, examining the loose affiliation of frozen water crystals that melted stingingly in the palm of his hand.

He paused to consider a far-off memory. A sad smile spread across his face as he stood there. It was the first time in nearly nine years since he had last touched snow. After he had managed to find a way off New York, he had briefly stopped over on the northern world of Maine to admire snow and ice for the first time. Then the War had taken him, and that had led him here. Only the cool air back in Maine had been delicate and friendly, as were its people, which was also a first for Gideon.

Fichina was dangerous, and the sooner he parted from it, the better. But for now, he had a job to do, even if that job was for a military that was not his own, a nation that he had never known, and a system that could care less about him. But it didn't matter if his work wasn't appreciated. He dropped the snow and drew his submachine gun.

He had a job to do.

He felt a presence behind him.

"Are you okay?" Hazel's voice enquired. He glanced back at her quickly. Her radiant amber eyes gleamed worriedly into his own. He could get lost in those eyes…

_What am I doing with her?_ He wondered silently as his heart sped up. _Flirting? Passing the time? Breaking the ice? _He sighed quietly as he took in her distant scent and soft purr of her delicate breath.

_I don't know. _Was the answer, and his heart slowed. His face once again became a cold mask as he turned to face the white void ahead.

"I'm fine," he muttered coolly, oblivious to Hazel's bereft expression. He began to walk. The snow crunched soundlessly beneath his feet.

"What's with him?" he heard the young ferret ask as he neared the distant tree line. Beyond, the silhouetted form of the Fichina Military Research Facility hung like a gothic spire in the white of the day.

"I don't know; he was all smiles and rainbows this morning," he heard Hazel's voice drift from behind.

"Uh, it looked like you _both_ were a little more than 'smiles and rainbows'," Carson's voice followed. Gideon smiled slightly at that.

A sudden echo from above brought his eyes to the distant pale sky.

_What the hell?_ Within moments, the sky was alit with orange-red rumblings and explosions. Above, Gideon glimpsed four Cornerian Arwings ducking and dipping through the pale, gossamer clouds as orange projectiles gave them chase.

He recognized the unique blue glint that shimmered darkly on the advanced fighters.

_Star Fox_.

Gideon gasped as dark green fighters shot through the clouds and let loose a second volley of the ubiquitous orange projectiles.

"Oh god, it's just like the vids," Carson breathed as Gideon's Cornerian companions caught up with him.

"Yeah, he's amazing…" Hazel agreed as the lead Star Fox fighter dodged a volley of missiles and energy blasts. Fox McCloud's Arwing spun toward the nearest cluster of energy ships, and fired, vaporizing the trio of enemy ships in a molten smog of green fire.

A sudden snap of twigs past the tree line brought Gideon's gaze straight ahead. He quickly crept up behind one of the nearby evergreens and signaled his companions to do the same. He flicked off the safety on his Thompson submachine gun and leaned from cover.

A platoon of soldiers with red stars on their white camouflage combat uniforms quickly advance through the pale, dreamy forest. He placed his finger on the trigger.

He didn't see the distant, amnesiac primate who observed him through a sniper scope with luminous jade green eyes.

* * *

**Terms:**

_White Army: During the Russian Revolution (known unilaterally and perhaps incorrectly across Earthspace as the October Revolution), the forces of the Russian Provisional Government, which supplanted the Russian throne after the Tsar's abdication, were known as the White Army. The opposing communist forces were of course known as the Red Army. After the revolution ended in the Red Army's favor, the Soviet Union adopted the White Army term for any revolutionary force that arose within a country under Soviet influence or jurisdiction._

_Hinomaru: Literally "sun-disk" in Japanese, Hinomaru refers to the rising sun design of the Imperial Japanese flag._

_Genocamps: During the Second Great war, Nazi scientist and medical practitioner Josef Mengele ran various penal worlds across Nazi-controlled space whose expressed purpose was the "purification" of humanity through various grotesque genetic, cybernetic, and psychological experiments. Mengele, a monster of a man, led the abduction of individuals of all human ethnicities and nationalities to fulfill Hitler's dream of a "pure", unstoppable humanity. The reasons behind this, however, are open only to speculation._

_Necropolis: Greek for "city of the dead", Nazi extremists, under the command of Hitler, abducted German and conquered dissidents for the expressed purpose of their execution. Once brought to these dark, barren worlds, the abductees were forced into slave labor, producing some of the various industrial needs of the Nazi war machine. Eventually, many of these "workers" were executed as the war drew to a close and their respective worlds glassed with Antimatter warheads to cover up the evidence of the mass slaughters._


	11. Fac Bellum

**A/N: Hey, guys I'm truly sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out (midterms now officially rule my life), but I hope it was worth the wait. In the future, I'll try not to take too long getting future chapters out. Enjoy.**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 11: Fac Bellum**

Andrea Jade Bowman was cold. After she had escaped from the strange metallic room and the intruder who nearly killed her, she had wandered into the nearby forest. She was more than surprised that there weren't any patrols outside to greet her until she'd met a lone sentry who stood vigil over the base. With relative ease given her situation, she incapacitated the dark canine sharpshooter, relishing the thrill of combat.

After she had recovered the sentry's rifle, a fleeting thought had told her to kill the helpless being before her. Her fingers had trembled as she placed the barrel of the rifle to the sharpshooter's left temple. Her limbs shuttered, though she just dismissed this as the wind. Andrea's finger had hovered near the trigger, ready to squeeze.

"_Mommy,_" a cold whisper crept from the woods. She shuddered and gazed her head around in alarm. Cool white snow and sleet greeted her teary eyes. She looked back at the crippled guard who sighed contentedly as his greatest dream rescued him from that cold forest.

And Andrea found that she could not kill him.

And now, as the strange flying contraptions battled like dark gods above, she gazed through the scope of the sentry's rifle, an unfamiliar organism greeted her sights. His cool, pale skin camouflaged hauntingly with the soundless forest. He was armed. And close, she knew.

And then she saw his _eyes_. They were blue. Empty. _Cold_. They glowed colder than the chilling forest she wondered if she would ever escape. Her body shuddered and her fingers slipped on the trigger. Something deep within her told her not to kill this man. But she did not know what. "_Malakhim__,_" a cold voice whispered to her from the darkness of her mind, but she did not know what the word meant.

A low snap of a twig brought her vision below, where a group of white camouflaged figures glided like shades above the snow. A red star, similar to the one that adorned the sentry, gleamed brightly on each figure's white hat. They were the enemy, she knew, and the man with the cold eyes was instantly forgotten.

There was only the thrill of the kill.

* * *

Gideon Waller silently observed the moving patrol ahead. Gradually, the figures in white were making way toward the tree line he occupied. He knew he would have mere minutes before they spotted him. Unless, of course, one of the Cornerians ahead happened to have a half-decent snout and smelled his freshly-bled, sweating skin. He sighed inwardly. It would do him no good to think of every single possibility, because they were endlessly diverse and distracting. The duty of a real commander was to consider what was most likely or probable, and make the best decision using those variables. If only he could convince himself of that.

Sometimes, for Gideon, the agony of standing still waiting for something to happen was worse than diving headfirst into danger, because at least then he'd be in control. Standing there behind that constricted evergreen, he hadn't felt so out of control, helpless before the elements of the universe since…

He didn't want to think about the memories. It was so much better for him and the rest of the world if he buried them, he knew. Buried memories couldn't hurt him. It was so much easier to fight, to spring into action, to fall headfirst into the fires of war, than it was to sit and wait for some foreign variable to decide his fate. No, he had dealt with a lack of control over his own life since he was a boy, and he wasn't going to deal with it any longer.

He glanced to his left. Hazel gazed sharply back at him, the humor gone from her eyes. He sighed inwardly as he took in her reddish form. She looked unnatural without her usual humorously prying gaze of intelligence. He nodded toward her, asking if she was ready. She nodded back hesitantly, and quietly he hoped she had some measure of ground-level combat experience. If the patrol discovered them, Gideon didn't want her to get hurt.

Satisfied with her answer for the moment, he glanced to his right at Sam Carson, whose dark brown eyes reciprocated his gaze. This time, it was Gideon's companion who initiated the nonverbal exchange. Gideon nodded and clutched his Thompson. Whether or not the patrol ahead saw them, they'd be ready. At least he hoped.

Gideon glanced out from the tree once more. He saw that the patrol was still nearing the tree line, but began travelling at such a wide angle that by the time they passed Gideon's group from the right, he estimated that they would still be more than one hundred feet away. Perhaps not enough to get comfortable with, he knew, but at least it was a start.

After a few minutes, the Darcie patrol had made its way further along the tree line, passing Gideon's group without a second glance. He studied their animalian faces which gleamed impassively in the cool gloom of the day. Their ranks were uniform, rigid, conformed like any military unit Gideon had encountered in his dealings with humanity, and it scared him.

_They're becoming just like us._ He thought hauntingly. And he knew it was the truth.

What had struck him most about the Cornerians was how individualistically they carried themselves about their daily lives. They seemed to carry some level of innocence into adulthood that people back home didn't have. Maybe he'd been wrong when he decided that all militaries were the same. Maybe he'd been wrong about a lot of things. And maybe the Great Wars had damaged mankind more severely than it let on. But to see the Cornerian spirit perverted; molded into the blank faces that had tormented him so often as a child was somehow more frightening. But he didn't know why.

And it made him feel colder than Fichina ever could.

That was when he felt it – a sudden nip in the air one feels when he is being watched. He turned his gaze toward a distant white hill that hovered near the research base's silhouette. A glint of sharp reflective light caught his eye.

* * *

Alexei Romanov stirred in his chair as another energy charge smashed into the Hinomaru's hull. He flinched slightly as Commander Branson barked orders to his crew over the sound of grinding, crumpling metal. He winced as a power junction blew, sending bright white sparks flying over half the bridge. But the crew endured. Over the years, Romanov had come to understand the usefulness of mercenaries during his crusade to avenge the death of his family and their once-great empire. He had also learned that they were by far some of the most loathsome cowards in all of Earthspace, which was why Branson's crew surprised him; they stood steadfastly by their posts even in the heat of battle.

Of course, the Malakhim had inducted Alexei into their ranks because they saw his own usefulness in defeating the communist abominations, but they had very rarely lent a hand themselves. So, quite often, he was forced to work alone, limited by his own resources (which had very likely grown substantially since word spread that he toppled the Greek Communist Revolution, he considered with pride). And now, once more limited to his own stretch of intellect and fortitude, he brought up the interactive screen in front of him.

The screen chirped at his touch and whirred to life. A glowing, orange holographic display extended outward from the operations station.

"Romanov!" Commander Branson barked from the center of the room. Alexei looked toward the man. Branson stood sharply in the center of the room, periodically bracing himself every time the hull rumbled under an enemy attack. "Activate the weapons settings on your console!"

Alexei nodded and turned back to the holographic interface. His heart beat faster as the hull rumbled again.

"Return fire!" Alexei heard Branson order his crew. Immediately, the hull began to hum. The metal structure of the ship seemed to be reconfiguring itself.

_Of course!_ He realized, momentarily fascinated by this merchant ship's new feature. _This vessel is only disguised as a merchant ship! How the hell did I not figure that out sooner?_

A new, proximal tremor shook the bridge and Alexei knew that the Hinomaru's weapons were beginning to fire.

He renewed his focus on the console in front of him. Several options suddenly appeared on the holographic display, but only three caught his immediate attention:

[Activate Port Gauss Cannon 2]

[Activate Port Gauss Cannon 4]

[Activate Port Gauss Cannon 6]

He activated the three cannons. Immediately, the louder, more familiar hum rippled across the Hinomaru's hull. Instantly, the interface in front of him materialized into an external view of the attacking ships which were immediately surrounded with bright red targeting reticles. The advancing ships were distinctly pointy, but appeared far larger and more brutish than the CFS Horizon – Peppy's ship – which occupied the lower right corner of the external viewport.

Another option appeared that brought a hopeful smile to his face. Throughout history, whenever all negotiations failed, it was probably the most popular option imaginable.

The option was [Fire].

* * *

_Ke-kow_! A distant sound cracked over the buzz of the destructive craft above. Hazel tilted her head toward the quiet platoon of enemy soldiers that had made their way past her group.

"Sniper!" she heard one of the Red soldiers yell over the instant sporadic hail of gunfire. Hazel winced as the loud _var-var-var-var_ of their automatic energy weapons tore through the once quiet forest. She simply watched as tree after tree fell under the echoing hail of the deadly yellow gunfire. The chaos that had resided in the skies had spread to the ground below.

She heard more yelling and screaming as a second sniper round pierced through one of the enemy infantrymen who had clumsily staggered out from behind cover, unwittingly making himself an easy target. The soldier fell soundlessly as an unseen sniper bolt tore through his chest, turning the snow below him into a sickeningly dark patch of scarlet. Hazel shut her eyes and shook her head, wishing the blood away and the memories it threatened to unearth.

"Fuck! Comrade Jenson, lay down suppressing fire on that bastard!" a voice rang out over the hail of gunfire and she opened her eyes.

A sudden flair of movement caught her eye. Hazel turned and saw Gideon staring at her. His eyes glowed gloomily in the ambient snowfall. He didn't even flinch when a stray energy bolt landed mere feet from him, instantly melting a patch of snow. He merely tilted his head toward the enemy soldiers and raised his weapon.

"_Are you insane?_" She hissed at him.

He simply glared at her, though she saw that his mouth twitched slightly at the tone of her voice.

"We're here to save the researchers, not kill people who have their backs turned to us. And besides, we have no idea who that sniper is; he might try to kill us!" She pleaded with him.

"I noticed the sniper watching me a few minutes back," he said in such an offhand way that it irritated her. "He could've killed me at any time."

She shook her head and scoffed.

How could Gideon be so careless as to risk their group eliminating soldiers they could easily slip past now that a sniper had decided to start killing them off? Gideon claimed that the sniper had been watching him, and he hadn't bothered to tell her or Carson that some lunatic with a god complex could pick them off from hundreds of yards away as easily as breaking a toothpick. And on top of that, there was an inherent threat – she knew – that the prisoners might simply be executed if the DRC position were threatened, and because of that possibility she would not allow herself to waste more time than was necessary, not when lives were at stake.

How could Gideon, a man who had certainly suffered, authorize the suffering of others? Didn't he know what it was like to be hurt, to be wounded? Didn't he know how it felt? The cool air around her offered no answer. And as she gazed into his now-inhospitable blue eyes she felt as if she were looking at a totally different person in place of the man she thought she knew.

So far, Gideon had struck her as the wounded-warrior type of man. He always seemed used to hiding his pain from others despite the harm and loneliness it might cause him. That inclination of his had been what had drawn her to him.

_Not that those dreamy human eyes hadn't helped. Eh, Hazel? _Her brain blurted out before she could stop herself. She shook her head. _Serves me right for crushing on an alien who literally caught me in the air like their Superb Man, or whoever the hell he is._ She sighed and willed herself back into reality, and the harshness of Gideon's latest order.

Gideon's decision to attack an enemy group that no longer posed a threat shocked her. She held her mouth agape, reevaluating her feelings toward the man before her. What exactly was going through his head? She wondered, but could come up with no answer. Hazel just didn't know him well enough, and it killed her. She bit her lower lip in frustration. How could she have been so stupid putting her trust in someone – investing herself in a person she barely knew? _Never again_, she decided, and returned his cold gaze, resolute in her desire, no, her need to be strong.

He ignored her and advanced from cover, urging Carson forward with his left arm. He positioned himself near the enemy forces, but Hazel saw that he had left himself just enough room for a quick escape in case the enemy soldiers got a bead on his position.

The constant clattering of the enemy machine gunners drowned out more of her thoughts the closer she drew to the fray. She leveled Gideon's M1911 pistol ahead of herself, aiming the iron sights until they settled on a reptilian who fired scattered volleys of yellow energy toward the lone hill that loomed in the distance.

During her training she had grown used to firing energy weapons like blasters and laser weapons – things that caused the burns and blaster scoring she had grown too familiar with treating. Ballistic weapons were different. She had watched enough Earthspace war vids during mandatory military training courses to know that the projectiles humans used were fast, loud, and gruesome. She remembered feeling very sorry for the human medics and doctors scattered throughout the war. The wounds suffered by human soldiers had more often than not resulted in fatalities or torn limbs, and the devastation of loved-ones back home who sometimes didn't have a body to bury.

Her finger hovered over the trigger. And she hesitated. Her body shuddered in the cold. Could she do it? Could she kill someone who wouldn't fight back?

_Clat-clat-clat!_ Gideon's Thompson and Carson's M1911 thundered from behind the enemy troopers, catching them off-guard as the distant sniper picked off another target. Too late, Hazel realized that the reptilian warrior had pivoted on his feet – er – claws – whatever they were called, and had trained his energy weapon upon her. She had just enough time to dive out of the way before the swath of snow she had previously occupied had been flash-vaporized.

She rolled on the ground and raised her hands at the approaching enemy only to find them empty. _Crap!_ She swore inside her mind and fumbled on the ground for the utilitarian pistol. Powdery snow wafted up into her face as she shuffled around for the weapon.

Hazel heard a metallic clicking from behind her. Cold footsteps resounded mere feet away, and she knew she was just seconds from being discovered. She was about to turn when her right paw brushed across something solid in the snow. She curled her fingers around the object, feeling the nicks and grooves of the clunky human pistol as she slid her hand around the grip and her index finger across the trigger. She would have to be fast, she knew. And that was what she resolved to be.

In one swift motion, she spun around on the sheer, icy landscape. The friction between her exposed fur and the inhospitable earth scraped at her skin beneath, drawing blood. But this was a nominal sensation compared to the energy bolt that seemed to fly by her in slow motion. Without thinking, she depressed the M1911's trigger in the direction of the reptilian form that had assaulted her. She had just enough time to glimpse the figure crumpling to the ground as she continued to roll. After a few seconds she stopped. Blood trickled slightly from scrapes across her body, but she was able to stand.

The continued gunfire from the fight brought her back into reality. She turned and her heart leapt. While she had been busy evading one enemy soldier, her companions had been left to deal with the rest of the platoon, and an enigmatic sniper who fired like an unseen god upon the land. She cursed herself for her weakness and walked over to the reptilian's limp body. She bent down to retrieve the reptilian's automatic energy weapon. Hazel checked the weapons settings and found them to be familiar. She moved into a nearby clearing, where the rest of the battle awaited.

* * *

Captain Ivan Denisovich sat comfortably in his command chair. A commander of a DRC destroyer that housed over fifty men, he was tasked with the destruction of a single Cornerian frigate, which almost irritated him since his ships were direly needed on the Cornerian homefront, where things had begun to go unforeseeably badly once the aerial invasion was suddenly repelled and DRC territories bombarded by the capitalist government fleet. He scoffed inwardly at Command's utter lack of intelligent prioritization.

His task had been so utterly simple for such a formidable attack group of seven vessels that he had allowed his crewmembers to fire at will, but somehow they had mistaken the gray, rusted trading vessel that hovered beyond for an enemy ship. Ivan would have protested if not for Command's implicit orders that Fichina's space above the northern continent was to be sanitized completely – no matter who or what happened to be hovering over the planet. It was lamentable, he knew, but necessary, at least in the eyes of the Glorious Revolutionary Government. And that was enough for him.

"Sir! The merchant ship seems to be undergoing some form of transformation!" One of his crewmembers noted excitedly as the feeble Cornerian frigate in the distance struggled desperately against the DRC energy weapon attacks, returning fire in the form of bright blue energy bolts so often as their evasive maneuvers would allow. Alone, the single frigate posed no threat as its shields were torn under the constant pummel of yellow energy charges. If this merchant ship had surprises of its own, it was best he be made aware of them.

"Magnify," he ordered. Instantly, the second-rate view screen that occupied the center of the command bridge shifted from its view of the hopeless Cornerian frigate to the dark, decaying, unfamiliar merchant vessel. At first glance, nothing appeared to be unusual about the craft, but upon closer inspection…

"My god," Ivan swore, momentarily forgetting himself as he broke the DRC's non-religious statutes. But no one on the bridge noticed; they were more concerned with the large hypervelocity rail cannons that protruded from the merchant vessel's port side.

"All ships, brace for impa-" the voice of the fleet commander was cut off as a bright yellow streak ripped across the empty gulf of space, smashing into one the attack group's more damaged cruisers, searing through the remainder of its shields and splitting the entirety of the hull in half. He felt the impact tremors as the cruiser's fusion cores erupted, sending a rippling shockwave across space and toward the world below, where more would surely die.

"Fuck!" Ivan swore. "Concentrate all weapons on that new ship! Don't let it fire again!" His crew members heeded his command, pressing a variety of keys and buttons that sent a torrent of yellow energy bolts and red missiles towards the offending craft, easily colliding with its unshielded hull. Unfortunately, the hull appeared to be heavily armored – more so than would be seen on the average merchant ship.

_What the hell am I dealing with?_

* * *

Sam Carson faithfully assisted his new alien commanding officer in eliminating the opposing platoon of soldiers. Originally, he had been loath to even fire a weapon; a condition he desperately hoped his companions would not notice. So when Captain Gideon Waller had given him the order to fire upon enemy troops who had apparently been busy with problems of their own, he had done his utmost to follow the order.

Truly, however, if it hadn't of been for the shooting lessons his mother had given him as a teenager growing up in rural Corneria, he didn't believe he would've been able to pull the trigger, much less do so with an accuracy and precision that rivaled even American soldiers. He sighed inwardly as his borrowed pistol took another life, and with each life taken his mother had once again saved his life, and the lives of his companions. It was in times like this, when he was truly alone, that he could feel her, his mother's presence, guiding the movement of his fingers and the precision of his aim, like the warrior spirit from Corneria's ancient tribal days.

He raised the pistol to fire at a solder that had made his position and pulled the trigger. The pistol clicked. He crouched quickly as a volley of molted blasts seared the air above him. He withdrew the final clip from his waist and reloaded the pistol. He waited for the enemy volley to cease and rose from cover, easily sighting the offending trooper and pulling the trigger. The pistol barked harshly over the chaos of the white forest. The recoil stung his hands, sending vibrations up his arms, as if his body were rebelling against the existence of the killing machine. As was usual, the enemy trooper crumpled and fell in a lifeless heap upon the scorched, snowy ground.

"Clear," he heard Gideon's cool, mechanical voice signal over the sudden silence of the enemy weapons. As it would seem, the sniper in the distance had gone silent as well, so hopefully he didn't consider Carson's group to present a threat.

_Maybe it's one of the security officers from the base! _He wondered. _Maybe the sniper knows about Dad!_ And as he considered this possibility, a warm feeling of hope rose within his chest. It was a feeling that the coolest, sharpest winds on Fichina could not muffle, but it was not good enough for him. He had to _know_ his father was alright before he committed himself to the possibility that he would be so, despite the ensuing coolness that followed with such a negative line of thinking.

He stepped from cover and met Gideon, who stood over a group of unmoving bodies. Carson shuddered uncomfortably. Why would a pilot be so good at killing? He wondered. Normally, military pilots were trained vigorously in the art of survival given the possibility of crashing in unfamiliar, usually hostile environments, but as he stood there faced with the human pilot's handiwork, he had to admit that his proficiency for killing was excessive at the very least.

_I'd be stupid if I wasn't the least bit scared of this guy._ He thought to himself as he registered Gideon's emotionless face. _But he seemed fine earlier; hell, he even smiled this morning. So what the hell is this? _He wondered.

"Clear?" Gideon asked Carson, bringing him back into reality.

"Y-yeah. Clear," Carson answered, cursing himself for his visible nervousness.

"Good," he said simply as Hazel entered the clearing. She had apparently taken a disliking to her human weapon and had retrieved one of the enemy's energy weapons.

"You alright?" Gideon asked her as he turned. Carson might have been going crazy, but he could have sworn he detected a low level of regret in the human's voice. This made him a little less uneasy, but not very much so.

"Yeah. Fine." Hazel said bitterly as she ignored his gaze, the ever-present sarcasm making no headlines in her voice. "Oh, and thanks for making us kill all these people. You're a real saint."

_Oh, there it is,_ Carson thought mildly and sighed. He hadn't known Hazel very long, but he had dealt with her during desperate situations – situations during which people had the least control over which parts of themselves they showed. And Carson had seen the strong, capable woman beneath that sarcastic mask, but her persona was also mired in darkness. Something had happened to her, Carson thought. Sometime in the past, Hazel had had to deal with an impossible situation rife with death, and the resolution of such had scarred her especially horribly when she faced later situations dealing with death.

_And now she's developed some feelings for the human, for whom death is a daily occurrence – a commodity – something that might as well have been dealt with over breakfast. And now that she's starting to realize this she's going to go through denial. The poor woman might never stop questioning her feelings about someone in the future without wondering if they're like Him. And Gideon doesn't even realize it._

Carson sighed and took inventory. His pistol still had a few rounds, but he knew it would probably be best to retrieve one of the enemy's energy weapons, which could typically fire over a hundred rounds before the battery needed to be replaced. He holstered the pistol and grappled one the automatic weapons from a dead lupine. He checked the charge. **67%** it read – approximately seventy shots, Carson did the math. He was drawn once more to the sniper's position, and the knowledge the lone figure in the distance might hold.

This was going to be a hell of a day, he knew, but he allowed himself to hope.

* * *

**A/N Okay, so things have gotten much darker in this chapter, but suffice to say it was a lot of fun to write. Be sure to stay tuned for the coming chapters and, as always, if you have questions, comments, or opinions don't hesitate to review or send me a PM. Thanks.  
**


	12. Standoff

**A/N: Hey everyone, I'd like to thank you all for your support and your generous feedback, it really helps a lot.**

**And Comrade, I do value criticism so don't be afraid to say what's on your mind. So, without further ado, the latest chapter.**

**Badlander**

**Chapter 12: Standoff**

Major Victor Zogz was a reptile of many talents. First he had been scientist, and at that he had excelled. Then he had become a Venomian mercenary. At that he had been merely wasting his time, since Star Fox had taught him and his peers a new meaning for defeat by annihilating everything that crazy ape Andross threw at them before annihilating Andross himself. Zogz wasn't sure whether or not he really cared that Venom had met its untimely demise at the hands of the capitalists.

At first, Andross had banded the Venomians together by playing on their common hatred for the well-off denizens of Corneria, but truly the ape did not care for the benefit of the common people. Although his demise eventually made things easier for the fat cats back on the homeworld, Zogz took solace in the fact that the genocidal maniac was gone for good.

And now, sitting in the cold operations room of the Fichina Military Research Facility, he had become a soldier fighting for the cause of the Cornerian people, who had, for too long suffered under the ever-present lording of the bourgeoisie.

"Zogz!" the loud, pained voice of his General called out to him. The reptile turned from the scene of his various subordinates carefully dismantling the Fichina Weather Control Device. The facets of this plan were barbaric to say the least; Comrades and capitalists alike would die by the thousands today if everything happened as it was supposed to, and briefly Zogz questioned whether or not he were any better than Andross.

_At least I'm doing this for the greater good of the Lylatian people_. He considered, and for the moment that thought was enough. The screams of the imminently damned would not reach his ears, and from the loss would spring a great, equalized society, no longer burdened by wealth or tainted by poverty. Besides, no matter what his feelings were on the subject, there was no turning back now.

* * *

Gideon Waller shivered as he bent down to search the torn bodies for valuables. So far, he had managed to scavenge some basic energy weapons and batteries – he pocketed those (they would come in handy if his jolly old Tommy Gun had decided to run out of bullets). The object of his next search had been a rather large reptilian who had blast trauma center-mass reminiscent of a .45 ACP round.

His search was quick and methodical, as he had trained it to be since he was a little boy barely scraping by after he escaped into the Badlands of New York. Corpses were a common sight in the forgotten world beneath America's greatest city, but food and medicine weren't, and one had to be quick in order to completely strip a body of valuables before the Vulture Tribes descended upon the scene – and _they_ didn't care if the people they tore apart were living or dead.

Life down in the pit had taught him to be a survivor. He had originally fought and resisted the urge – the need – to desecrate the dead, all for some vain hope of preserving… _What was it?_ He wondered. _My humanity?_ _Heh. Well, if I ever had humanity, the Badlands stripped it from me just as I have scavenged anything useful from these corpses._ He narrowed his eyes and his fingers continued to move, swiftly searching the reptilian, driven only by the need to survive.

His search turned up nothing useful so he trudged softly back to his group. He winced lowly as they immediately and inevitably scrutinized him upon his return.

_Monster._

The word was written all over their faces, thrust upon him like a death sentence he could not repeal or object. Gideon knew that once people made up their minds about him, their thoughts were set, and there was nothing he could do to make himself… more, better; something worthy of a feeling other than fear. But it was futile. The universe couldn't unwind itself and memories were not forgotten, and wounds never healed.

"Wow. You're quite the survivor, Captain," Carson said, though Gideon could tell that this was not a compliment. The wavering ire in the ferret's voice conveyed the fear and nervousness he had grown all too familiar with in his dealings with the strange organisms known as People.

Often, the people Gideon met or who served under him had never considered him with anything other than nervousness or fear. Even Hazel, for whom he had grown to care for had rejected him once she had seen the parts of him that people were always afraid of. It wasn't fair. People coddled him like a fragile toy once they had learned of his tortured past, but they always expected him to be better for it – to rebel against the circumstances which had made him so irrevocably miserable.

People didn't know how to react when they saw how just much those events had _changed_ him, molded him into something different; something ugly. Maybe it was because people had it in their minds that the victim was supposed to be a Good Guy. And they always blamed him for not aspiring to be "normal" like them, as if their lives represented the epitome of all existence. And the truth was: they were right, but for the wrong reasons.

Many times in his life, Gideon had felt the opportunity to change things, and many times he had passed on those opportunities. He wasn't strong like the heroes he so desperately wanted to be, or like Fox McCloud who inspired the love of his teammates and his home system. Gideon was weak, empty, slow to change and slower to accept change. He would always be a monster, he knew. That was the only thing he would ever be good at.

But the worst thing about being a monster wasn't the fear and rejection it brought from other people, it was the stress of acting normal for people who couldn't stand being afraid, all the time knowing he was a monster, and that no amount of acting or pretention could change that.

He looked up. His companions were studying him differently now – it wasn't fear but rather intrigue that was written upon their faces, and in Hazel's golden eyes especially. Those warm orbs studied him from the cold of the nipping air. He was relieved that she looked more like herself. Perhaps she would forgive him. He hoped.

"Yeah," Gideon replied softly and turned to face the ferret, "But Lieutenant, sometimes surviving isn't the same as living." He concluded grimly and turned to face his goal, the object of his mission on that desolate world.

Gideon trudged ahead into the snow, towards the looming building that waited in the distance, unaware of the perplexed looks his companions exchanged before they fell in line.

* * *

"Shields down to thirty-seven percent!" Peppy's tactical officer, a white arctic vulpine, announced across the quaking bridge of the CFS Horizon. Mere minutes ago, seven enemy starships had appeared seemingly from out of nowhere, attacking the Horizon and the strange human ship without announcement or provocation.

Although Lylat was enduring a period of civil war, surely the enemy had better things to do than annihilate a single frigate and merchant ship that orbited a relatively unimportant world. At least that's what Colonel Peppy Hare thought before the human ship sprouted giant hypervelocity cannons that sent projectiles sheering through at least two of the enemy vessels so far.

Were the enemy ships here for the human merchant-ish ship? Perhaps more curiously, was the human ship here to aid in the war effort? It would explain a great many things considering how utterly powerful the aging vessel's cannons appeared to be, but why would humans risk escalating the Soviet-American conflict? Wouldn't the whole damned universe be at stake if that happened?

The hull shook once more and Peppy glanced again at the human ship.

A massive volley of yellow energy bolts smashed into the gray ship, burning through its heavy armor. He could almost hear the crunch of the ship's hypercannons as they were torn apart one by one, spinning endlessly into the blackness of space.

"Crap," he breathed, but the sudden damage to the Hinomaru had surely opened a window of opportunity. He turned to one of his lieutenants. "Bring us about and fire on the lead craft!"

The subordinate nodded and brought the ship around, arcing the silver-blue hull against the backdrop of the gleaming white planet below. The officer leveled the ship, dodging the stray energy blasts that inevitably trailed across the vacuum of space in the direction of Peppy's ship, but the enemies were so utterly focused on obliterating the human ship, they didn't realize that Peppy had a secret weapon.

He let a small smile play about his face.

"Lieutenant, execute protocol: Barrel Roll."

He had just enough time to hear Katt smack her head in frustration before the Horizon's energy banks began firing.

* * *

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Hazel asked, wholly aware of the answer. She just felt like pressing Gideon's buttons, especially since he had just shown that he wasn't the heartless monster he made himself out to be. Even though he had ordered her to eliminate people who by all means did not deserve to die, he had shown regret after doing so, more so after she had treated him coldly, and he had retreated further into his shell (his Broodsphere, as she had come to call it). This of course only made her more interested in him, despite the fact that every fiber of reason within her was screaming at her to stay away from him.

The memories he had threatened to unearth…

She sighed and continued to walk, keeping a short distance between herself and the lumbering human ahead of her. He was dangerous, she knew, and deadly, and not in a sexy way, so why the hell did she have this strange, nameless… feeling whenever they were close? She knew she should be scared of him – she had every right to be once he had demonstrated his familiarity with killing and looting the enemy soldiers, and for a while she thought she _was_ scared of him, but the feeling was somehow different. And she did not know why or how. There was nothing worse or more painful for Hazel than not knowing how she felt about something.

_Well, there was this one time you failed… failed everyone…_

She forced the memories back down. Forgetting was like stemming the tide of a roaring river. The longer she did so, the more she felt the tide of the memories pushing, threatening to break through the barriers she had set up. And memories, much like the tide of a river, hated to be held back.

She shook her head and re-immersed herself in her analysis of Gideon's Broodsphere.

Gideon was a strange man because he seemed capable of both drawing her interest and infuriating her at the same time. In that respect, he was very similar to the trashy soaps she used to watch as a teenager; the characters were often bland and idiotic, but the chemistry and contrived plots between them prevented her from looking away. The characters seemed resolved in their mission to burn holes in the brains and hearts of Cornerian teenagers. And she had hated and loved them at the same time for it.

_Maybe that's why we have a civil war now,_ she thought dryly. _It's all because of bad soap operas._

That was when Carson decided to be helpful.

"I think he's talking about the contrived dissimilarity between the hunter-gatherer need for food, water, and, um, procreation and-"

"Oh. Procreation, huh?" Hazel asked, already in a good mood now that the ferret had provided her with an opening for her teasing.

Carson glared at her, unfazed, perhaps sensing the teasing aura in her voice. She had to give him credit: Second Lieutenant Sam Carson was a lot smarter than he let on.

"Yeah, you know, sex?" Carson wondered, his eyes mockingly serious, "Perhaps you're unfamiliar with it?"

_Well played._

Hazel shook her head and smiled.

"Shut up," she said to him, earning a low grin from Carson. She was prepared for a retort, but to the ferret's credit he remained silent.

She looked up when Gideon tensed visibly in front of her. Was he trying to stop himself from smiling? Maybe she could draw him into the group if she kept talking. It was a longshot, but it was worth a try.

"So, Carson -" she began when Gideon interrupted her. She drew in a breath of frustration. That man had to have the absolute worst timing of all, well… time.

He held up an arm and fist in the universal military gesture for "stop moving and shut the hell up". Instantly, Hazel was alert, scanning the environment for any signs of hostility. She could find none. Her hand hovered over the trigger of her newly acquired automatic energy weapon. The dark metal gleamed hauntingly in the empty Fichina breeze.

"Don't move," he said sharply and turned to face her. He narrowed his otherworldly blue eyes. "Keep your weapons holstered." He continued, and focused his gaze upon a single tree that separated the group from the Fichina Military Research Center.

The reddish vixen gasped as a woman appeared from behind the tree quieter than the breeze that nipped at her sensitive ears. Her blonde hair was wrapped behind her in a ponytail that rippled in the wind. Her face and her eyes were fiercely simian. The woman before them stood at least six feet tall and wore a simple gray jumpsuit. The thing that struck Hazel the most though was the ridiculously-sized gun that was aimed straight at Gideon's head.

_The sniper…_ She realized.

Hazel was surprised when Gideon flinched nearly imperceptibly, but it was there – she had grown more familiar with the man's facial twitches since she had met him. A minor facial twitch on Gideon may as well have been a gasp of fear or surprise. _Or hurt_, she considered silently. Maybe he really was more alive than he let on.

The simian let a predatory smile spread across her face, perhaps noticing Gideon's momentary flinch, but the smile faded when the human's face hardened, once again solidifying into the impenetrable mask Hazel had grown exceedingly irritated with. This time, however, Hazel wondered if Gideon's stoicism would be the only reason she would walk away from this encounter alive.

"Drop your weapons, Malakhim," the Simian said sharply, gesturing toward the various energy weapons Gideon had acquired from the fallen enemy soldiers.

"How do you know that I'm a Malakhim?" He wondered aloud. Suddenly, he stepped forward.

"Gideon, wait!" Hazel pleaded, but she was too late. The sniper rifle exploded mere inches from Gideon, but he had somehow managed to knock the barrel away just in time to avoid the shot. Hazel moved to intervene, but in an incomprehensible blur of motion, Gideon had drawn his sword and held it up to simian's neckline. The sniper responded by aiming her rifle at Gideon's center-mass. They were at a stalemate.

"Useless sword, my ass," Carson muttered under his breath and Hazel glared at him.

"Who sent you? Was it The Watch? Answer me now," He growled, his tone dark and menacing. Now, Hazel was afraid, but she wasn't sure if she was afraid for him or of him.

Hazel's heart stopped as Gideon gazed into the primate's hostile jade-green eyes which widened at the human's words.

"You don't remember, do you?" He wondered and lowered his sword.

"_Who_ the hell are you and how do you know anything about me?" The simian swore and jabbed him the chest with her rifle in show of strength, but the waver in her voice told Hazel that the ape's confidence was diminishing. It was almost as if Gideon knew more about the primate than she knew about herself. It was spooky how Gideon just seemed to _know_ things.

"Andrea Jade Bowman," he said softly and patted the sniper barrel gently away from his chest. The simian woman did not resist.

_Bowman. _Hazel thought. _Why does that name sound familiar?_

"You're a wanted woman back on Neo," he continued. His pale face and gleaming blue eyes betrayed no emotion.

"How – _who_ the hell are you?" Andrea choked uncertainly as if he had hit her in a weak spot.

_Uncertainty, aggression, stress of the word 'who'… classic amnesiac symptoms._ Hazel considered silently, remembering the occasional living blank slate that wandered into her previous medical office. Unfortunately, memory was a tricky thing. Hazel knew better than most that memories seemed to have a mind of their own – _Ugh… pun._ She thought to herself and shook her head.

"I'm Captain Gideon Waller," he said and turned to gesture toward her. "This is Lieutenant Hazel Bartlett and the ferret is Lieutenant Sam Carson. We're here to evict the communists from the nearby science facility. Will you help us?"

"I –"

"I'll tell you everything you want to know if you help us clear this base. Something tells me you have keen insight into its layout and troop compliment."

"Don't forget about the hostages," Carson said crossly, glaring at Gideon, and Hazel was instantly reminded that Carson's father may very well be held hostage within the walls of the nearby building.

"Sorry," Gideon said lowly and Carson merely shook his head.

"I didn't see anyone unarmed in the fucking place," Andrea said, regaining her confidence. "But I did hear something about a General Solarex extracting some Device from the facility. Seemed like it was important."

"The Device…" Carson breathed, "It all makes sense now."

"What Device?" Hazel pressed. "What makes sense?"

"The commies are going to steal the Fichina Weather Control Device," the ferret stated with sheer finality. Hazel's eyes widened, fully aware of the implications of the oncoming firestorm that would tip the balance of power in the Lylat System.

"Weather Control Device?" Gideon wondered, then his eyes widened, likely remembering the sudden storm that had downed their shuttle merely a day ago.

"If they take something that powerful," Gideon continued, "They could destroy all of Corneria City."

"What?" he asked when no one said anything further.

Carson walked up to him, his eyes dark and full of worry.

"That device is the only thing keeping Fichina's weather from freezing us to death. If the communists take the device, everyone on this planet without some form of ship-grade protection is gonna die."

Gideon's eyes widened and then he shook his head. Hazel watched as a drift of snow settled on his dark patch of hair, where the hair follicles caught the snowflakes, making them hover like stars above his head.

"But the communists have thousands of troops here – why would they destroy the planet's ecosystem if…" he trailed off, suddenly realizing what Hazel had known since the Weather Control Device was mentioned.

"They're going to make it look like we deactivated the device to kill the communists…" Hazel said.

"…And when the public gets hold of that the citizens will crucify the Cornerian government. The communists won't even have to fight a war," Gideon finished. They gazed into each other's eyes, recognizing the threshold they had to cross together, for the sake of millions of lives.

Just as he spoke, the sky above churned and a low, humming vibration filtered through the ground.

"It's already started," Carson said.

Gideon nodded and unshouldered his Thompson.

"Then we have no time to waste."

* * *

**A/N: Alright so the characters have finally managed to meet their mysterious sniper. Oh, and DaLintyMan, everything will be developed in due time, so please be patient. I have a feeling you'll enjoy what I have in store for the gang in the later chapters. **


	13. Lynchpin

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed.**

**Badander**

**Chapter 13: Lynchpin**

Fox McCloud tumbled across the atmosphere in his Arwing. In mere minutes, the enemy fighters had been eliminated with extreme prejudice by the Star Fox team. The local airspace was sanitized. So why the hell was he so worried?

"Slippy, is there anything unusual happening?" He wondered.

"Huh. Funny you should ask," the amphibian replied in his trademark high-pitched voice. "I'm detecting a high level of flux in Fichina's atmosphere. Strange."

"What's going on, Slip?" Falco wondered. Fox nodded. He was more than curious as well as to why the clouds around him were acting like they wanted to smear his innards on the ground below.

"Hmm… It's almost as if the temperature can't decide whether it wants to stay the same or…" Slippy trailed off, confirming Fox's worst fears and his theories on why the communists had bothered to invade Fichina in the first place.

"Damn…" Fox breathed as the sky began to grow darker.

"Fox, what's going on?" Krystal asked. He sighed. Although Krystal was easily one of the most intelligent people he had ever met, her life spent in the wilds of Sauria had made her somewhat naïve, which was especially obvious during the uncommon moments she had to be exposed to high-scale military strategy and political manipulation. However, this had been part of what had drawn him to her in the first place.

Over the years they had spent together, Fox had come to adore the sheer innocence Krystal seemed to embody completely without effort. She was resilient and simply refused to the miseries of life beat her down. He could only hope to be as strong-willed as her. That was why he had made it his mission to make sure nothing happened to her. No matter what he felt towards her, Krystal's capacity for good alone warranted Fox's undying protection and… well, was it something more? He wondered about this as he imagined a time not too long ago when he had stammered over the notion of taking Krystal to Sauria for "their" honeymoon.

He shook his head. Why would a woman as great as Krystal ever be interested in a guy like him?

"You mean to tell me the commies are gonna steal the Weather Control Device?" Falco's voice questioned disbelievingly, bringing Fox back into reality. "Fox, is this for real?"

"I'm sorry Falco, but my scanners don't lie. The artificial Weathersphere across the planet is rapidly destabilizing," Slippy replied in a rare moment of bleak seriousness. Fox blinked. He had grown used to Slippy's almost demeanor that he seemed to be able to maintain even under the strain of enemy fire. To hear Slippy so sullen and serious was indicative of just how dire their current situation was.

"But – but that means…" Krystal stammered. Fox heard her sigh before she continued, "How much time do we – how much time does Fichina have?"

Slippy cleared his throat before answering.

"By my calculations taken from the first time the Weather Control Device was threatened during the Aparoid War, I estimate we have approximately two hours before the planet reverts back to its original below-freezing climate."

"Um, how cold are we talking exactly?" Falco asked nervously, and Fox was instantly reminded of how much avians like Falco hated the cold. Fox's species and its canine cousins had been lucky enough to retain their fur coats after eons of evolution. It sometimes made him curious as to why foxes would evolve with winter-durable fur coats on the tropical/temperate world of Corneria which very rarely experienced below-freezing temperatures.

Recently, he had watched a documentary that stressed the possibility that Cornerian civilization had been advanced in the distant past, perhaps to the point that (either by industrial byproducts, or, more cynically, nuclear war that had somehow heated the planet instead of blotting out the sun and freezing it) it heated its atmosphere to the point of near-uninhabitability that put so much strain on the planet's inhabitants that Cornerian civilization regressed, eventually evolving at a slower pace into the war-torn interplanetary federation it was today. This theory, coupled with the advent of the various human interstellar empires, lead Fox and many others to question many preconceived notions about the origins of the universe and life in general.

"If my calculations are correct and the planet ends up resuming its natural climate," Slippy indicated, once more disturbing Fox's private moments of thought. "We could be facing worldwide average temperatures south of negative seventy degrees Celsius."

"Our Arwings can handle that easily," Falco understood. Then his voice grew dark. "But all those people on the ground… Fox, we _have_ to stop those Red bastards from stealing the Weather Control Device!"

"Agreed," Fox replied and adjusted his heading to face the Fichina Military Research Facility. "Krystal, notify the Horizon that we have detected an attempt by the enemy to sabotage or steal the Fichina Weather Control Device. Try to signal our ground forces to evacuate as well, but if you can't, get Peppy to relay the message."

"Yes, Fox," Krystal said lowly, obviously more than disturbed that someone would annihilate thousands of lives to achieve a goal, but Fox had faith that her mission performance would remain unhindered. Krystal was a lot stronger than most people gave her credit for.

"What about Hazel and her team?" Falco exclaimed, "We can't just leave them down there!"

Fox cracked his knuckles and sighed. "Falco, we have no way of knowing if they survived the crash -"

"But -" Falco interrupted.

"We… we don't know where they are…" Fox croaked, "We need to focus on the Weather Control Device, Falco. It's the only way we can save them for sure."

When Falco didn't answer, Fox faced forward. Ahead, the sky churned like a dark gunmetal hurricane writhing violently under the cold gaze of space. Below, Fox spotted the dark spire of the research facility. He glanced at his Aerial Proximity Scanner. No contacts besides the friendly green blips of his team's Arwings registered in his view. Quietly, maintaining his vigilance for enemy fighters and missiles, Fox McCloud prepared his Arwing for landing.

* * *

Commander Rick Branson swore loudly as another one of the six gauss turrets mounted on the Hinomaru's port side was torn from the hull by a wall of energy blasts and missiles.

"All weapons – return fire!" He barked and immediately a new volley of hypervelocity rounds left the Hinomaru, tearing across the thin fabric of space to collide with the enemy vessels that hovered in the distance. Branson beamed with pride as a bright yellow hypervelocity round lanced into one of the attacking vessels, crippling its weapons systems.

Although Branson prided himself on being a particularly deadly mercenary, he always preferred to disable enemy ships rather than destroy them. And why not? He wondered. The results were the same, if not better: the enemy could no longer fight and their families back home would be spared the agony and heartbreak of losing loved ones. It was a common goddamn courtesy that some of the more zealous Japanese Imperials had not afforded him during the Second Great War, and immediately he envied the families of those stationed on the disabled DRC vessel. Those lucky bastards probably had no idea what the hell it was like to lose people who didn't have to die.

"Enemy vessel disabled," the thin Russian accent of the snide spawn of the Romanov dynasty filtered throughout the quaking bridge. Branson took a moment to survey the thin blond man, whose pale features had contorted into a severe expression. And Rick had to remind himself that the man before him had not only lost his entire family, but managed to survive whatever grueling training regimens the Malakhim forced upon their recruits. On top of that, Romanov had somehow found the resources to knock down an entire communist uprising in the unstable powder keg that was the Mediterranean Star Cluster. That feat alone warranted Branson's cautionary respect for the man, even if he could never like him. There were just too many greedy, scheming Romanovs scattered throughout the ruling classes of the Commonwealth of Worlds (formed between the now-defunct British Empire and a majority of its former colonies, including Australia) for Branson to be completely comfortable near such a man.

"Holy shit!" One of Branson's crewmates exclaimed as the CFS Horizon tore through the enemy formation spinning and firing at the lead ship. The enemy ship crumpled under the sudden barrage of blue energy blasts and red bomb-like projectiles, but what was most striking about the maneuver was the low level of damage suffered by the Horizon. It was almost as if the rotating barrel roll motions of the Cornerian vessel were reflecting the various enemy energy bolts. Branson of course dismissed that thought as completely and utterly ludicrous.

"Sir – the enemy ships are retreating!" Branson's tactical officer announced over the crackle of the wiring which lay exposed throughout the bridge. "Should I lay in an intercept course?"

"Negative," Branson ordered with a flick of his wrist. "Hail the Horizon – ask them if they need assistance."

"Aye aye," the officer replied before he got to work at the controls.

"Branson, I'm detecting something rather strange developing on the planet's surface," Romanov chimed in, his trademark royalty voice practically oozed arrogance. Sighing, Branson walked up behind the blond man who eyed his station's holographic interface curiously.

"What is it?" Branson grumbled, very much not in the mood for BS.

"Oh, and I was hoping we were more than just friends," Romanov cracked and smirked. Branson glared at him with a look that could vaporize crude oil.

"Ahem, well. I was fiddling with this nice scanning implement here," he pointed at the upper right hand corner of the viewscreen which hosed the backdrop of the ice planet below.

"And…?"

"Well you see that temperature read-out there, my Neanderthal friend?" He pointed again, this time at the distant laser thermometer that automatically scanned the nearest planets for suitable temperatures as part of a safety mechanism. It had something or other to do with automatic escape pod launch destination that had been implemented in case some officer who had a little too much sake just happened to mistake the self-destruct button for a vomit bin. Or something like that.

"Yeah?" Branson grunted, his patience waning.

"The temperature on Fichina is dropping rapidly," Romanov stated and pressed a few more buttons on the holographic interface. The blond man turned to face Branson. "If these readings are correct, and the rate of temperature decay remains the same, the whole damn planet's gonna be uninhabitable in around two hours."

"That's fascinating… Wait, what?!" Branson exclaimed. It was very rare that something was able to surprising him. And well, this qualified as pretty friggin' surprising.

"The. Ice. Planet. Is. Going. To. Freeze. Over." Romanov grumbled arrogantly and Branson was instantly within seconds of beating the man's face in before one of his subordinates decided to interrupt. And by interrupt, the subordinate probably called it "strategic intervention" or some such crap.

"Um, sir?"

"WHAT?" Branson growled and clenched his fists. He was Not Happy and he wanted the Whole World to know it.

"The Cornerian Colonel is requesting communications. He says it's urgent."

Branson sighed and drew in a deep breath. Breathe in, and breathe out, his mother had said when she found out about his loving relationship with anger. Now his mother didn't breathe anymore. He sighed again.

Life.

Sucked.

"Put him on screen."

* * *

Corporal Jessica Stevens shivered as the cool Fichina air nipped at her dark feline ears. Somehow, the air had gotten _colder_, if the bastards at Command would believe that, she considered silently.

"Sheesh, Jess. How can you stand being outside in this?" An older lupine named Arvani said. Jessica didn't know her first name, but that didn't stop the wolf from calling her by her own.

"Captain's orders," Jessica answered flatly, her distaste for the cold weather abundantly evident.

"Who told you that?" Arvani asked suddenly. "It wasn't Reynolds, was it?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Oh, that fat pig," Arvani said before she shook her head. "You've been Fichina'd."

"Fichina'd?" Jess wondered, although a creeping suspicion within her was beginning to recognize with painful clarity that she'd been duped.

Arvani simply growled in sympathy and took Jess's arm, leading her back to their unit's encampment, where warm food and water awaited by some miracle.

They were trudging through the powdery snow before Jess tripped over on something solid, colliding face-first on the ground, eliciting a low laugh from the lupine.

_Yeah, yeah. Real friggin' funny._

Suddenly the laughing stopped. Jess looked up and shook the snow off her face to get a clear look at the lupine. Arvani's face grew pale with each passing second as she stared at the ground around her. Jess noticed that the wolf paid much attention to the various dark rocks that littered the landscape.

"What's wrong, Arvani? They're just rocks…" And then she saw. The thin, barely noticeable sapient features of each object became more and more clear the longer she looked. Jess, in a panic, glanced again at the object which had tripped her. Cold dead eyes screamed at her from the ground below, frozen in place, watching her from the places beyond the living, where the damned suffered in eternal agony.

All around them, the members of their platoon lay frozen in the Fichina wasteland.

They would not be the last to suffer that fate, entombed in a grave without a name.

* * *

"I h-h-hate the c-cold," Hazel chattered as they neared the Fichina Military Research Base. Inwardly, Hazel could feel the capitalization of the black metal facility ahead. And she found that she hated everything about it.

"You have fur, Princess. Surely you don't need to complain – my eardrums don't like it. At all."

Ah yes, Andrea Jade Bowman. The mysterious sniper and all-around antisocial amnesiac had finally decided to chime in. And what did she decide to do? Make fun of innocent Hazel who did nothing wrong except vocalize her pain. Once.

"Well I'm truly, deeply sorry if my pain is an inconvenience to you," Hazel replied, her voice thick with sarcasm.

The ape glared at her. The woman's jade green eyes flared dangerously in the chilling icy air. Above, the clouds churned more darkly than she had ever seen before. Hazel gulped. Exactly how much time had Carson said they had until the whole planet killed them? She kind of wanted to know, because dying was bad.

Right.

"Will you two relax? We still have to retrieve the weather control device and save…" Carson lowered his gaze.

"Save who?" Andrea wondered with what seemed like genuine curiosity, which surprised Hazel. From what she could tell, the team's newest simian addition was short-tempered and dangerous - not to mention the fact that she was an amnesiac and therefore extremely unpredictable. Who knew what Andrea could be capable of if or when she recovered her memories, or if Gideon, the mystery man of the year told her what he knew?

When Carson lowered his gaze further and didn't reply, Hazel glanced once more at Gideon whose dark form was readily making its way past the unguarded boundaries of the research base. She sighed. The more time she spent around the human, the stranger and stranger he seemed to get. At first she had been… well, enamored with him to say the least. When she'd met him, she had found the mystery of the past the lay untouched behind those piercing blue eyes intriguing.

She didn't know how she felt now about how they had almost kissed twice in the past few days – after all, she barely knew him and his sudden familiarity with brutalizing enemy regiments hadn't exactly helped in that regard. But when he'd showed her, told her about intimate parts of his past, his raw emotion while doing so almost made it seem like he'd never done so before. That he'd trusted a part of himself with her… No one had ever done anything like that for her before…

"You'd think this place would be guarded," Carson breathed as they stepped past the unguarded front gate. The research facility was a large building by Fichina standards. Its gothic spires easily towered over the various evergreens of the surrounding forest. They paused when the outer walls surrounding the structure gave way to a white, snow-covered courtyard that might have once been the center for more sensitive plant growth back when the government's main priority had been to terraform every last uninhabitable world in Lylat. Now, the former hotbed of scientific activity lay dormant, broken under neglect bred by a war that raged just beyond the horizon.

"I think they brought their troops into the building to prepare for whatever they did to the Weather Control Device," Gideon said as he turned to face the rest of the group. Silently, his gaze fell upon Hazel. He narrowed his eyes and walked up to her.

"Are you gonna be okay?" He asked quietly so no one else would hear. It took her a moment to realize he wasn't talking about the cold. Her heart fluttered suddenly within her chest.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Hazel answered and gave him a slight smile. He smiled back and held her gaze for a few more moments before he turned to approach the threshold of the research base.

"So, we just go in?" Hazel asked no one in particular.

"It doesn't look like it's locked," Carson replied and hesitantly tried the door.

"Wait!" Andrea hissed but she was too late. A sudden blast of energy propelled Hazel off her feet. She tumbled endlessly in the freezing snow before she finally came to a halt.

Darkness.

* * *

Colonel Peppy Hare gazed piercingly into the communications viewscreen. On the other side, the two strange humans who had aided him against the communist fleet stood rigidly in front of the bridge. Peppy cringed when he saw the various scrapes that stretched across the men's faces and the bridge's interior. The orange glow of the ancient tactical room barely masked the various scorches where a wire or power coupling had blown. Peppy's own bridge had barely taken a scratch, yet this was mostly due to the fact that the enemy fleet had been so completely distracted by the immensely powerful human vessel that they hadn't paid the CFS Horizon very much attention.

"Commander Branson, on behalf of the Cornerian Federation, I'd like to thank you for your assistance," he said, his voice clear and commanding.

The strange green-haired man cleared his throat.

"We merely defended ourselves from attack, Colonel, and quite frankly I'm not here on my own business. You'll want to speak to Mr. Romanov; he's the one payin' the bills."

Strange. Why would a human mercenary travel all the way to Fichina?

"Understood," Peppy said and the older man nodded his head respectfully. "So, Mr. Romanov, what can I do for you?"

The younger man stepped forward. He cool brown eyes glittered with dark intelligence.

"As I said before," the man stated in that strange accent once again, "I'm looking for –"

"Colonel!" Peppy's tactical officer chimed in. A look of sheer irritation spread across the blond man's face. Peppy ignored him and glanced at the officer.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"I'm detecting an unknown ship approaching Fichina – closing fast!"

"On screen," he ordered and immediate the dark viewscreen at the head of the navy-silver bridge blurred into a distant green streak across the black ocean of space. Faster than Peppy would have ever thought possible for subluminal travel, the streak blurred past the Horizon and the Hinomaru, tearing into Fichina's atmosphere before disappearing altogether.

"What the hell was that?" Katt asked from the back of the room. No one answered. The men and women who sat at the tactical and sensory stations of the bridge fumbled about their controls. And Peppy knew that what they just saw defied any previous classification. So what the flying hell was it? Did it pose a threat?

"Colonel Peppy," Romanov interrupted his train of thought as the Hinomaru's bridge rematerialized on the viewscreen. "I'm afraid we don't have much time."

"I know," he answered, "Star Fox just sent word that the communists are trying to steal the Weather Control Device. They're on their way to retrieve it from enemy hands."

"Weather Control Device?" Branson questioned before nodding his head. "That's why the temperatures on the planet have been falling so rapidly?"

"Indeed," Romanov answered and clasped his hands together in what Peppy recognized as a gesture of extreme worry, "but that's not why we have such little time."

"I don't understand."

"The ship that just passed us, well, it's not friendly," Romanov answered. His trademark arrogant grin was absent from his pale facial features. "They'll load up that Device and disappear before anyone realizes what happened."

"That sounds like the perfect getaway vehicle," Branson said. "How the hell do we stop it?"

"I don't know," Romanov replied. "With these weapons? I don't know if we'll even be able to make a dent in the thing."

"Okay, everyone hold on a second," Katt interrupted and approached the viewscreen. "Just who the hell are we dealing with? I've been around, ya know? I know for sure that the Reds don't have anything like that in their navy."

"They don't," Peppy promised with the confidence of a man who had access to information normal people were seldom privy to. "Not even the Soviets."

"Yeah, well, none of that matters now," Romanov said. "What _do_ matter are the people whose lives are hanging in the balance on Fichina. If we don't act now, they'll all die."

* * *

Gideon Waller was not having a good day, though that was hardly unusual, he considered bleakly. Things just had to be so irrevocably miserable all the time for some obscure cosmic reason.

_Whoever's writing my story hates me. That's what's going on here._

He shivered and sat up. He winced as his back cracked when it left the numbing comfort of the ground below. He took a moment to get his bearings. He sat up, his body half-submerged in the snow some fifty feet from where he had previously stood before the – bomb? – had gone off. Above, the sun's position in the sky hadn't changed visibly, so it had only been mere minutes since the trap had exploded, propelling him across the courtyard of the lumbering metallic structure above. He looked around again. No sign of his team.

"God dammit guys, please be alive," he let slip out before he steeled himself for the deaths he might very well have had to deal with in the moments ahead. He wanted to call out for them, to find out where they were, but something within Gideon told him to keep his mouth shut. When the Fichina Military Research Facility's large, ironclad doors, which had survived the previous blast relatively unscathed, opened, he understood why.

What emerged from the opening was perhaps the largest Cornerian Gideon had ever seen, and by the bestiary with which the Malakhim labeled the technologically primitive life forms found in the Lylat System, the figure was a silverback mountain gorilla. But large did not begin to describe the nature of the size of this heavy-hitter. The ape had a profound build of sheer muscle-mass that adorned his hulking black frame. But what was perhaps most disturbing about the creature, however, were the bright orange eyes which glowed like miniature suns out of the ape's badly scarred face.

Immediately following the oversized simian though was a rather slim reptilian who periodically turned to direct a platoon of soldiers who hefted a rather large octagonal object which glowed bright blue in the ever-darkening Fichina atmosphere.

_The Weather Control Device…_ He thought silently as the objected cleared the Facility's entryway. Behind the device, a second platoon of soldiers escorted at gunpoint what appeared to be a collection of around twenty male and female Cornerians, some of which donned stale white aprons and coats. _Those must be the scientists,_ Gideon figured and reached for his Thompson. His hands came back with nothing.

_Shit! It has to be somewhere… _He thought as he turned to comb the surrounding snow. He had no such luck, and apparently the various energy weapons he had accumulated from the morning's enemy platoon had somehow been thrown from his body in the explosion. The only thing that remained faithfully at his side was his _calogladius_. His heatsword. Whatever good it did him.

"You're very lucky to have survived that blast, human," a low, guttural voice emanated from behind him. Suddenly, a large hand wrapped around Gideon's neck, lifting him from the ground and forcing him to face his attacker.

The giant simian had closed the fifty-foot distance at a remarkable speed considering the loose snow coverage of the courtyard, and he had done so _entirely_ without making a sound. As far as he remembered, no one had ever managed to sneak up on him like that in a very long time. And Gideon had an excellent memory.

"There there," the ape said in a voice that seemed too soft for the creature's size before loosening its grip on Gideon's neck. "Speak," it said lightly and grinned with child-like amusement. Gideon could spot the artificial, metallic teeth that lined the ape's rotting inner gums. He fought down the urge to gag.

"You're making a big mistake," Gideon croaked.

The ape simply smiled, his bright orange eyes radiating pure, uncompromising malice.

"Hm, your species is weaker than I expected. Disappointing," the simian grunted before he tightened his grip once more, squeezing Gideon further into unconsciousness. Black dots sparkled across his vision. "Pity the guys upstairs want you alive…"

_Var-var-var!_ A loud, familiar set of gunshots rippled across the courtyard and the simian's grip released immediately. Gideon tumbled to the ground, clutching his neck. He looked up in time to see the simian recoil before another volley cascaded in the direction of whoever fired the shots at the ape.

In a loud bellow of rage, the simian drew a large black sword from a scabbard that apparently adorned his back.

Gideon immediately drew his own sword and began to run. The wind biting at his exposed skin, he activated the sword's heating mechanism. His right arm was met with the comforting warmth of the glowing metal as he sped toward his target, the pain in his neck forgotten. He launched himself, swinging the sword in an upside-down **U** arc that reflected the cold light of the distant sun above.

He didn't see the green light that tumbled down from the heavens with infinite malice in its heart.


End file.
